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 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, 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, some images hint at the solar event, but there are no photos of the moment the moon passing between the Earth and the sun. (There are, however, photos of the moment the eclipse took place but 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.)
On the day of the eclipse, Sethi also did a photo shoot of a small collection of clothes by his friend Chris Peters of CDLM, starring another friend, the artist and model Bella Newman. “His work is spiritual,” Sethi said 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 about these ethereal moments. There’s this monumental cosmological thing happening, but the things that we’re documenting are these quiet special moments.”
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 eggshell 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.
Sethi is releasing a book of photographs from that day, fittingly titled Total Solar Eclipse. “The intention of literally making a physical thing means a lot to me, and when it’s done, it’s all right here, with four corners on it,” he said.
A story that perfectly illustrates the intentions of Sethi’s work: In one photo, Newman is sitting on a table, wearing a trench coat painted gold with red fringe around her neck, her hands seemingly cradling something delicate on her lap. It turned out to be the little eggshell she found in the yard. “I was like, ‘No one will ever know that you have an egg in your hands,’ and it’s not a secret that has any real importance, but now I’m telling you, and now maybe everyone will know.” Now you know the secret, but to see the photo, you have to get the book.
