She put her strawberry lip gloss on

And a sticky sweet smile on her face

He took an afternoon nap next to the fountain 

And woke up to the melody of piano man

One summer afternoon I walked through a park full of young people. It took me a few visits to observe and absorb the energy around me.

I would spend days talking to strangers in the park. I never knew Newyorkers had so much time that they can stop and talk to strangers at such length. That place was magnetic. At the end of summer I had many photographs of live musicians, artists, skateboarders and just people in general who would come to sit in the park from far away.  I realized I had just collected memories from my first summer in New York.

About Jay Patel

Jay Patel grew up in Valsad, a southern coastal town of Gujarat in India. He began as a self taught photographer while working in Pune as a photo assistant to a friend. In 2016 he moved to the US to pursue education in photography. He found the energy and life of the city to be magnetic. While waling around the streets of Manhattan he approached strangers and started making portraits of them. Jay graduated from Creative Practices program at ICP New York in the summer of 2019. He has been working as a teaching assistant for Allen Frame’s seminar class at ICP New York for past six months along with his commercial freelance work.

Over the years his work has been about the experience of places and portraits of people in that setting. He looks for the intimacy of people in their private spaces. During his year at ICP he turned the lens onto his own life and worked on a personal project. Through ‘Diving into the unknown’ he takes you through his commemoration and a journey of overcoming fear. This work evokes a deep tactile feeling of water and its relationship with the artist. Recently he began working on another personal project during quarantine and lockdown which is about magically mundane moments and stillness of life inside and outside his home. [Official Website]