Big City Markets Just May Be Overrated!
I woke up one Saturday morning in late July 2020 in my Brooklyn apartment and I said out loud, “I don’t love this city anymore”. And just like that, there it was. Although it had been a long time coming, I fell out of love with NYC just as quickly as I fell in love with it. It was over. The love affair had ended.
Lea and me on our morning walk in our last NYC neighborhood, Dumbo, January 2020
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I first moved to New York City in the Fall of 1987. I was fresh out of college and just secured my first job as a studio manager for a famous female fashion photographer. I was 24 years old and my destiny laid out in front of my eyes; I was full of hope, dreams and endless possibilities! And I fell madly in love with NYC from day one! It was definitely Love at First Sight!
Tyler and me on set for ECRU New York in February 2020 right before the lockdown
So many “firsts” happened for me in NYC. My first break came in early 1990 when Sassy Magazine hired me to shoot a 6 page editorial for their magazine. I was so stoked! That editorial led to many publications after that, it was the door that opened up a world of opportunities for me! I’ll always be grateful to Neill McCutcheon for reaching out to me to hire me that first time! I met so many great and influential people in NYC, people that led me to opportunities in Paris and Barcelona, Munich and Sydney. My career really started in NYC and I will be forever humbled by how lucky and fortunate I truly was.
My first magazine cover for Alice Magazine, shot in December 2018. I was so proud of this cover!
I also failed hard in NYC. But doesn’t everyone? NYC is a full-time Opera-eque drama of high highs and low lows. Because every time we take a risk, we gamble with potential failure. But for me, in NYC in particular, it seemed like a never-ending climb to success with one step forward, two steps back. Over and over again until I finally outgrew the rat race. I outgrew the climb to success. I outgrew the people who were only using me, the “hanger-on types”. And Thank You, Universe but lo and behold, I finally realized that I just wanted different things in my life. And I had “grown-up”, so to speak.
My husband visiting me on set in 2015
Most people don’t know this but in September of 2014, just two weeks before I met my husband, Matt, I was in Humboldt County in California, looking for land to buy. I was going kind of throw in the towel then, start growing some herbs and flowers and live off the grid for a while. I looked for land over a long weekend but then I had to go back to LA to pack up for NYC and two weeks later, I accidentally bumped into a random guy in front of The Abbey, a hipster bar in Williamsburg. The rest……well as the saying goes, the rest is history. The “guy” and I ended up together from that night forward and I never did buy that land in Humboldt! Instead, I threw myself back into my career, shooting non-stop, and then decided to go for my final dream: To start my own fashion and rock and roll magazine! Alice Magazine was born from an idea I had been brewing for close to 20 years! I was finally living my Eyes of Laura Mars Dream!
And then March 15th, 2020 happened, and it all became crystal clear how really miserable I was.
An empty Times Square March 29th, 2020
Here’s the thing: up until the pandemic, I was one of those idiots that had the worse FOMO if I wasn’t living in The City. I was also pretty adamant that if you weren’t living in the thick of it, you weren’t really an artist. My belief was that if you wanted to call yourself a creative creature, you had to struggle like the rest of us. And that whole belief system came to a screeching halt around March 16th, a mere day after they locked us down. You know, there was a lot of time on our hands being shut in our apartments with all production halted. And plenty of time to start asking some serious questions, oh like, “What could the amount rent I’m paying for this tiny 800 square foot apartment afford me in, say, Tennessee?” “Wait, what???”
What’s are the top 20 hip cities in the US that are NOT LA & NYC and what’s their cost of living? Fuck me running. The answers were mind-boggling. In almost any smaller town outside of LA, NYC, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, & Seattle, life looked really affordable. And not only affordable but actually NICE!
I am forever grateful for the pandemic. It opened my eyes and made me see that my ideas were really outdated and not my own anymore. And with all that time on my hands, I did a ton of research and made some awesome road trips to discover that all those “fly over States” I used to so smugly refer to them as were actually pretty awesome!
Me on set in the “fly-over” state of Oklahoma with model JJ Clark and Breed Team Dude Robert Trawick
My husband and I moved South! Like Deep South, South. We bought a huge home on several acres of land, out in the middle of nowhere but near a vibrant town and I’m finally growing those herbs and flowers I wanted to back in 2014 before I met Matt. But guess what else happened? I got busy shooting. Within a month of moving here, I got booked on a 4-day gig in Dallas! And work just started pouring in again! I had two of my business months just this year in January & February of 2022! Which has led me to believe that it might be actually better to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond than the other way around! I have models driving and flying from all places in the South and Southeast to shoot with me, or they fly me in like the shoot I did in Oklahoma! And the scope of my work has expanded to more areas of specialization. Which is great for the income! My workshop in Dallas was really fun and a lot of people joined us, I am anticipating the same for my upcoming workshop in Oklahoma City on March 26th & 27th!
I guess the moral of the story is, living in a big town like LA or NYC maybe isn’t what it used to be cracked up to be. Maybe there are more opportunities for photographers in smaller markets! It’s been the pot of gold for me at the end of this rainbow, for sure! I love this area of the country and I’m loving the new work that’s coming in! And thank God no one is singing out “making it here” or any other such nonsense! : )