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Field Guide XZ-88


NYC: Searching For Luck

Anytime I’m walking around with or without my camera, I'm taking pictures. Studying how people move, looking at their patterns, noticing accidental patterns aligning, just for a split second, then it's gone. Constant occurrences of planets aligning. Happens all the time, just have to open your eyes. I enjoy the serendipity that occurs when I leave the house. Shit is just beautiful. A lot of the time, I feel like a director of photography, a silent one. rarely speaking. just observing and capturing the beauty that's in front of me. It's a fun mental and creative exercise for the brain. My brain. We are all aware that if you want your muscles to grow, you need to change your exercises and challenge yourself. It's you vs you! 
 
NYC streets are a place where I go to fail. A place I go to get lost in the chaos just to see if I can find my way out with a contact sheet to prove it. I take trips to the big red apple to challenge my muscles in a way I just can’t do at home. In New York, the frequency is different. The second you step off that bus or train, you’re thrown into a level of movement that doesn't care what time of day it is. You’re either in it, or you’re in the way

The colors of the city, the colors of the fashion, the combination of the two can make the street look like a kaleidoscope, or look like a Pantone ad for the color Ultra Black. A lot of shit can happen in a New York minute. There is always a surprise. You can find yourself walking in the middle of a parade because you decided to take a left five blocks ago at that intersection. Or, you can end up playing dominoes with some Jamaicans (or at least people with Caribbean accents) and spend an hour or two internally deciphering the truth from the lore while soaking in all the banter amongst the ‘Cool Runnings’ crew.




Walking the NYC streets is like going to the casino. You walk with confidence to show that you're no stranger to the games. You try your luck here and there, wanting to leave the place a winner. Shit, you may even get lucky and hit the jackpot. But whatever the outcome, you have to keep in mind that the house always wins.
I don't live in NYC, so I'll take a few days off to make the pilgrimage to the city of dreams. In the beginning, I would take the MegaBus up there on a Saturday and make a day trip. Which really meant hitting the pavement at 5 am and pushing myself until I was standing in a makeshift bus line at midnight. These days I'm taking the train and staying in a hotel. I got money now, so I can stretch out the binder. The chase is still the same from when I first took photos on the streets of New York. I mean, it's not the exact same, but it's a high I'm constantly chasing. It's like the first time you hit that pipe, THAT is the high you keep chasing. You blink, and now you're an addict looking forward to the weekend trip on the train to get high.
When I first studied Vivian Maier’s contact sheets, I saw how they mapped out her day, 12 frames of gold.The Gold Standard. That became the standard I set for myself every time I hit the pavement. The challenge is a bit ambiguous, but it leaves room for you to play with the rules. I’m here to have fun, not meet some quota set by my boss. Telling a story in just 12 frames requires a mix of focused fun and manufactured luck. During my last trip to NYC in October ’25, was the last time I put together what I’d call a ‘decent’ contact sheet.
October ‘25 -  I was hitting the streets cold, I needed to let off that first test shot to get the gears turning. Something to boost the confidence and get the blood flowing.
Got the test shot. Now the film advances, the shutter count hits two, and the butterflies are gone. My hearing goes selective, only hearing the sounds that guide my intuition, and my hands are as steady as the steel poles holding up the traffic lights. All signals read green, the body is primed to start snappin’.


NYC is a potluck of chaos that can turn any day into a scavenger hunt. You’ll know what you're looking for when you find it.
Same day, different street -  I had a date with the streets that lasted until my 10:30 comedy show. After a quick meal and a fresh reload of film, I was back out. The street lights were on, the moon was out, and the mix of halogen and LED lights spilled onto the sidewalks. This was my palette for the next few hours. I had a cinematic montage playing in my head, the kind that plays during the opening credits of films from the 90s. I said to myself “These shots are the behind-the-scenes to that made-up movie”. Challenge accepted.


Street photographers are like the guys who roam the beach with metal detectors. Walking aimlessly, guided by their intuition in hopes of finding gold.


PTPT


I first heard Nickelus F around 2013-ish, best guess. The timeline is blurry, but the memory of seeing him perform for the first time is vivid: 2014 at Strange Matter, RIP. Strange Matter was a bar-restaurant that doubled as a music venue. The spot was small, but that’s why it worked. There were no ‘bad’ seats because there were no seats, you could sit, sure, but if the artist was doing their job, you were on your feet. Even from the back bar, you felt the stage presence. You were an eyewitness to the energy ping-ponging between the crowd and the artist like a tennis match, 15-love, [ Insert Artist ].



I walked into the show at Strange Matter with zero expectations. I was familiar with his latest album VICES — still a solid project 10+ years later, and 'Pem Pen' was my shit! But I wasn't ready for Sweet Petey to show up and show out. I didn’t know it then, but I’ve noticed that Nickelus has a specific way of introducing himself to an audience (in person or on a record) that sets the tone for everything to follow. It’s like the final clink of a rollercoaster chain at the top of the hill, something intense is about to happen. That night, he hit the stage in a Jack Skellington mask, flicking off the crowd. What followed was a barrage of raspy-voiced raps over homegrown production that hooked the room and reeled them in sonically. He had the crowd flopping in unison to the bass and hi-hats, caught in the current of his sound. By the end of his set, I was fascinated. I was a fan. At one point in his set, he played a song called “Triflin” that I only heard at a couple of shows. It was an anthem for fuckery behavior, and I think Nick put it behind lock and key due to the powers that unlock when played (email me if you got it)... You don't realize how special those moments are until you're looking back at them.


[ Fastforward to Present day ]


I got a text from Nick late last year saying, “I want you to shoot the cover art for my next album,” I was surprised, nervous, and excited, but I was ready. A few weeks later, its a frigid Monday in January and we are meeting up to shoot the cover for The Undisputed. The final cover was actually captured within five minutes of me pulling up. I told you I was ready. The rest of the shoot was just me moving a light around an


Nick originally wanted a side-profile silhouette, something like Bill Evans at the piano. A strong image to capture his journey from tadpole to bullfrog, showing the battle scars of a dominant silverback leading his tribe. The vision I had going into it was a film noir interrogation room look, a single light source lighting up NIck as he banged away on his machines. Neither of those ideas came to fruition but that's the beautiful part of creating. You can go in with one idea that you really want to happen and you walk out love struck. For the final image we went with something brighter and highlighted the artist vs obfuscating them in the shadows. I personally favored some of the more sinister shots we took, but at the end of the day, the artist decides how to represent their body of work. The artist's choice is final.

Over the years, I’ve acquired enough photos of Richmond that my hard drive could probably be used to help reconstruct the city’s DNA. At the nucleus of the City’s musical double helix is Nickelus F, pumping his homegrown muddy melodies into the city’s veins. Nick has always been an architect of the underground, pulling raw materials from the crates and welding them into the foundation of his sound. To be asked to help design the cover for this skyscraper of an album was an honor. It felt like designing a billboard to bring in more citizens to enjoy the newly built skyscraper.



Pizza Parlor Tuesday


These days, it takes a lot for me to leave the house on a school night. However, I will sacrifice some sleep if I see an opportunity for a good time, and that is exactly what I did on a Tuesday night: Made a sacrifice.

I was burning down my social media time watching IG stories. Running up the meter and skipping all the screentime notifications. While continuing to get my fix, I watched a story with someone in a pizza parlor going off on the SP-404, and I’m glad I had the sound on. I saw that story and said, “ I need to go there”. And so I went to the pizza parlor the coming Tuesday.


I love a heavy bass line accompanied by some hi-hats. It's an easy recipe to get me moving and shaking. But I’m not moving too much, just enough to catch the rhythm and anticipate everyone's next move. 

Crowded around these electronic keypads like an old school operator with their headphones and switchboard. Switching out cords, Mashing buttons, twisting knobs, and fully focused on connecting you to the music. On this Tuesday, when I was in the pizza parlor, it seemed like a producer training ground opened for public viewing. It was a community of producers showcasing their old work, new work, or just trying something new. You could tell whoever plugged their device into the switchboards was there to have a good time, nothing else.





Dare you go out on a school night to the pizza parlor? Hit up the 80404 Club if you decide to go out.