“No phones, no photos, just living in the moment.” Our generation’s addiction to capturing every single minute of our lives as content to be shared on social media has given way to nostalgia for the era before technology meant we had a camera readily available 24/7. But for the photographer Nick Sethi the opposite is true.
“Taking pictures is a really good way to have a relationship with everything in the world, but with a lot of openness,” he explained recently from his Chinatown studio. “So much of my personal practice is about responding to things that are already there, and I’ve noticed that I pay so much attention when I’m taking pictures, that later when I look at a photo, I remember what something smelled like, and what was happening in the world and in my life that day and how I was feeling.” In recent years Sethi’s photography work has become part of his mindfulness practice. “This tool I already know basically tells me to pay attention and to be present, so I just use it as much as I can.”
With all this in mind, Sethi set out to document the 24 hours during which the solar eclipse took place in New York City in April this year, beginning at around midnight with photographs of his girlfriend looking at books in his living room, and later stepping outside to catch the first rays of light and photographing his neighborhood. Throughout the day, there are images that hint at the solar event taking place, but there are no actual photos of the moment the moon passed between the Earth and the sun. (There are, however, photos of photos of the moment the eclipse took place, taken later in the day, as evidence of that moment where you sit on your couch at the end of the day and go through your pictures to relive the events that just took place.)
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Sethi
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Sethi
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Sethi
On the day of the eclipse, Sethi also did a photoshoot of a small collection of clothes by his friend, CDLM’s Chris Peters, starring another friend, the artist and model Bella Newman. “I think his work is spiritual,” Sethi says of Peters. “I often work as a fashion photographer and I would say there’s a decent amount of non-spirituality in my line of work, and when you meet people who really care, and their work is about their connection to things, it’s a really special thing and I’m always happy to be in their orbit.” The two met a few years ago through Susan Cianciolo, a mutual friend whose practice also involves a desire to be present and consciously interact with one’s space and energy.
“The day with Nick was really beautiful,” Peters recalled on the phone. “What’s amazing about the way that he works is that it’s really about these ethereal moments; there’s this really monumental cosmological thing happening, but the things that we’re really documenting are these quiet special moments.”
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Sethi
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Sethi
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Sethi
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Sethi
Indeed, the photographs from the shoot capture a certain kind of tranquility, as the light changes subtly from page to page, and Newman’s gaze projects a kind of regalness rooted in ease. In one photo she holds a tiny egg shell found on Sethi’s deck in her hand. It is placed next to another photo of her, with her eyes closed, a fuzzy pom-pom at her neck, and the glare of the eclipsed sun reflecting on the camera. The sphere motif repeats throughout, a symbol of both the sun and infinity.
