I originally met Fish Grease at a hip hop talent show back in April where I took some live shots for the promoter. I gave him and some of the other talent my card; I have had several calls since. Fish Grease is the first I have organized a shoot with. When we first spoke about putting a shoot together, the first question that arose was location. I suggested that we shoot in an area where he was familiar with in East New York since that is where he is from. On the day of the shoot, I took a car service over to his neighborhood as I was getting ready to pay the driver, the driver told me it was the first time he took a white person to the area of East New York in twenty years of service and that he would never personally exit the car because he felt it was such a dangerous place. Being my first time in East New York, the driver's comments made me a little nervous, but once I met Fish Grease, his family, and friends, I was put at ease. In reality, the neighborhood seemed like any other neighborhood. There was a playground where kids were playing basketball and other games. Families were having barbecue's, and everyone seemed to know each other's name.
After I brought up my equipment to Fish Grease's apartment, we decided we were going to take some shots in front of his building. We captured a couple of images that we liked, but nothing that stood out. We continued to shoot at the park, where I found a green brick wall to shoot against. It seemed to work with the blue shirt he was wearing. We decided to take a break after the park shoot, so he could change into another outfit. After he changed, we took some more shots in the stairway of his building. The majority of the stairway was painted an off white, but there was a section by the door that was painted red which went well with his black shirt and red shoes. The photo of the stairway shot can be seen at the top of this blog entry.
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