The New Yorkers

By Max Lang

I am not a New Yorker.

As an outsider from another country, I have always fantasized about New York. I imagined the city to be the yellow cab speeding by a hailing, pedestrian, or the rodent passengers on the A train, or the banker who lives in the Upper East Side on a steady diet of one-dollar pizza and Michelin-starred sushi. My imaginations were terribly narrow.

I began this photography project to find out what New York is. Inspired by Robert Frank and his legendary publication, The Americans, I wanted to show a cross-section of the New Yorkers with a camera and a lens. The photography from this project were taken during the COVID pandemic of 2020, and they are by no means a holistic display of the New York life. Instead, these photographs present a very personal perspective – my perspective. In my effort to try to dissect New York, I am unconsciously dissecting myself. With these photographs I was able to piece together not just a fragment of the city, but also a slice of m life apart from assignments and deadlines.

I attempted to find out who the New Yorkers are, and I ended up finding out who I am. Colson Whitehead wrote that one becomes a New Yorker when one starts building one’s private New York, when one points at a Chase Bank and sees the demolished bodega, and when for whom “what was there before is more real and solid than what is here now”. I disagree with his remarks. I believe one becomes a New Yorker only when one becomes part of someone else’s New York. I am more than just a voyeur observing from the outside. I break into people’s lives with my camera and become a fragment of their New York.

I am a New Yorker.