Here’s what I love about NYC: the beauty is in the small things, tiny details that you miss in the first-sight awe of skyscrapers, crowds, and flashing lights. My friend commented to me a few months ago that she thinks she’d feel lost in NYC – tiny, insignificant, forgotten. And I understand why; NYC does that to people. Until you acclimate. What I’ve learned to do instead is appreciate the countless stories, the countless individuals. To love the tiny details – the floral architecture on a doorway, the little boy playing in Washington Square Park, the bird watching passerbys.

NY City Center

Here’s what I love about North Jersey: People are friendly and open enough to let a complete stranger photograph them. There’s very little of the distance you feel between people who pass one another in NYC. Total strangers have handed me their fishing pole and taught me to fish; total strangers have let me stop them for a photograph, or stick around for two hours photographing their kids.

Father and son cast off