We all find ourselves waiting in a myriad of ways almost every day, sometimes several times a day. I am the most impatient person I know. Shooting people while they waited, became a decades long project, fascinated in watching others spend their time doing nothing or something, seeing how gestures, body language, led to images of isolation or intimacy or just feeling bored. This was the 1970s through the early 2000s when we were devoid of the cell phone that consumes us all today.

I was 17 when I shot the first picture I felt strongly about—not of a person, but of a fancy car next to an overflowing garbage can on the main drag in the Long Island town in which I grew up. A very pedestrian, obvious picture to me now but it was the power in knowing I could express my feelings with a camera which sealed my passion. My dad bought me my first camera soon after, a Pentax Spotmatic, a manual 35 with a short lens which meant I had to get close to people to shoot. I have always been more interested in the subtle and familiar moments of everyday life, not the big news stories. They are telling in different ways and just as powerful. Nothing was scripted but played out right before me. As Patti Smith once said, “You need no rationale, no schooling. It’s love at first sight. You see something and you have to capture it. Instinctive, bang, you feel one with it.” I saw, I shot, I moved on. I looked for moments that make my heart beat so loud it almost knocked me off my feet. The rush of knowing you come upon something real and beautiful.