Objects: The NYCTA Project

The following text is the written forward for a book by Brian Kelley, published by Standard's Manual, 2017. The book can be purchased HERE.

The NYCTA Project originated as a photography experiment before evolving into a tangible collection of compelling objects. In 2011, Brian Kelley began photographing compilations of used MetroCards in his Brooklyn studio, arranging them in various grids. MetroCards that were bent, damaged, and even burned provided Kelley with subtle variations that challenged his photography and created unique visual interpretations of common objects. After spending weeks on the photographs, his brother suggested that Kelley make the MetroCard grids more interesting by finding other types of cards, including Single Ride, Reduced Fare, and limited edition promotional releases. Kelley’s obsession over unique objects, paired with his natural tendency to collect, quickly became an endless, up-all-night search for New York City public transportation artifacts. His collection—The NYCTA Project—has now been growing for more than six years.

Having exhausted his search for discarded MetroCards in many of the city’s 472 subway stations, Kelley turned to eBay for new finds. The online rabbit hole gave him a crash course in the history of NYC transportation. It also connected him with other transit enthusiasts and collectors, several of whom possessed incredible inventories of rare items that represented the evolution of the transit network. Kelley’s devotion to the project earned him support and credibility from others, enabling him to acquire unique pieces from vendors at fair prices. After making multiple purchases from the same sources, he even received donations from other collectors who started following The NYCTA Project and wanted to contribute.

As the collection grew, Kelley recognized that there were no comparable digital archives documenting the city’s transportation evolution. What he had photographed and archived were pieces of a greater story that had not been told elsewhere. He had objects that disclosed the MTA’s once proposed plans for its own airport, patches worn by members of the MTA social ski team, and subway signage set with typefaces that hadn’t been seen in decades.

Kelley’s unwavering motivation behind the project has been to share his discoveries. The New York Transit Museum facilitates tours and exhibits, but a social presence and easily accessible digital display of the NYCTA didn’t exist. Kelley recognized the opportunity to share what he was creating in a public capacity. Since starting Tumblr and Instagram accounts for The NYCTA Project in 2014, Kelley has photographed and archived over 1,000 pieces. As of 2017, the collection contains over 2,000 items. While the collection may never be completed, it nevertheless offers a visual history that’s engaging and educational—something every public transit user or urban historian can relate to and appreciate.

Sharing the collection online and publishing images on his branded social channels has connected Kelley to an underlying community of transit enthusiasts. Many MTA employees follow and advocate his project, sometimes contacting him with information and tips on rare items. A ferroequinologist is defined as “a railroad enthusiast” or “one who studies trains.” The NYCTA Project has proven to be an online attraction for many who identify with this niche community. Kelley doesn’t quite wear the label of a self-proclaimed ferroequinologist, yet he’s an inspiration to many individuals who share a common passion for transportation design. Through this project, he has built relationships with other transit enthusiasts who share their own stories about the NYCTA’s rich history—like one man who was waiting for a Midtown F train one night in the 1970s when he noticed an MTA employee throwing away a stack of subway maps. He took them home and later discovered they were original maps designed by Massimo Vignelli [1931–2014]. These maps still circulate on eBay today and Kelley owns two of them.

Kelley had an intimate look at the development of what would become today’s transit system simply by the countless hours he spent searching online for ephemera. One of New York’s first forms of public transportation debuted as a stagecoach that ran along Broadway in 1827. Thirty routes were added to the Manhattan network over the next two decades. Kelley discovered and purchased tokens from the Omnibus dating back to 1860, and won a bid on a ticket stub from 1885 when it cost three cents to ride the train across the Brooklyn Bridge—a line that was introduced in 1883.

The evolution of New York City’s transportation system is a story told through the evolving design that spans decades of the city’s history. Now familiar with the local transit’s complete backstory, Kelley can easily recognize the era of any item by its visual aesthetic. Kelley’s vast knowledge of the MTA is entirely self-taught through the act of collecting. He recognizes the varying signage in different subway stations and department badges worn by employees. He knows verbal codes and the operators’ language that’s used underground. When trains are delayed, he’s no longer annoyed and impatient, but rather curious about the source. The New York City subway network is immense and runs at maximum capacity around the clock—where one small incident can affect the whole system. The infrastructure is remarkable, and Kelley is one of the city’s keen residents who takes time to marvel at the vastness of bridges and depths of subaquatic tunnels that were built by hand for the sole purpose of transporting working-class commuters.

As boxes of memorabilia gradually overtake Kelley’s studio, he is quick to argue that not enough people collect things these days. As a product photographer by day, he often feels that his commercial work lacks longevity. In contrast, the NYCTA Project makes a conscious effort to share historical artifacts with a contemporary audience.

MetroCards served as the gateway for Kelley to discover the diversity of objects that stem from the Transit Authority. He has categorized arrays of patches, matchbooks, tokens, timetables, pins, and signs. As a self-funded project, there’s a necessary tactic to acquiring items by way of online shopping. Century-old, limited-edition pieces bear a heavy price tag. All of Kelley’s artifacts have been acquired slowly, allowing him to learn the backstory of each item and apply the necessary care to photographing them.

The items you see in the pages that follow have no distinct order or linear structure, but that’s what makes the body of work dynamic and beautiful. It’s not a chronological map of New York City’s public transportation history. It’s a photography project that portrays intriguing objects, where design and visual presentation maintain their core intent. Kelley’s acquired objects tell a greater story of New York City’s past. After collecting and purchasing items for six-plus years, he’s now sharing the stories and memories of other collectors who previously held these items. For him, The NYCTA Project remains a photography experiment and self-funded hobby to archive the culture of his home city. For the rest of us, it’s an intimate view of the city’s history, merging design and infrastructure over the past 150 years.

Eric Greene
New York City

Bobby Hundreds

By Eric Greene

In the early 2000s, Bobby Kim met Ben Shenassafar in law school, where the two first-year students bonded over a shared love for sneakers—a rare passion to have at that time. Ben wore Jordans, Bobby wore Air Force 1s, and anyone who knows iconic streetwear brand, The Hundreds, already knows this story. Bobby’s story runs in a lot of different directions outside of his apparel brand. He’s a creator, an innovator, a mild germaphobic, and a high-energy surf addict who only sleeps a couple hours a night.  

Bobby grew up in Riverside, California, which he describes as “brown.” Brown people, brown air, and brown dirt… He relocated to study law at UCSD in San Diego before moving to LA, where he’s now been for 15 years.

“I never practiced law, but did internships during the three years I was in school,” Bobby explains. “I was really involved and interested in human rights and the political activism aspect of law, which is why I originally went to law school.”

Bobby was part of the NLG (National Lawyers Guild), which documents stuff like police brutality and civilian protests. When his budding legal career was sidelined by making T-shirts with Ben, he maintained a focus on public activism.

“Aside from the debt, I definitely don’t regret going to law school,” he claims in full honesty. “As far as being equipped with the understanding of how the law works, that’s pretty priceless. It kinda feels like you’re always carrying a gun on you. It’s your weapon.” He was fortunate to build a network of major lawyers in Southern California during his time in school and now has access to lawyer friends in every capacity.

The Hundreds has ascended success by doing things differently in an industry where most companies all do the same thing. The brand is humble with no ego, and everything they do is transparent to their audience, which Bobby says is a representation of how they are as people. His goal is to relate to others on a personal human level, through sharing stories and connecting with individuals. “I just want my work to always speak for itself and my heart has always come from a story-telling perspective,” he says, having realized this more as he’s gotten older.

Bobby started running a daily blog when blogger.com launched in 1999. When The Hundreds launched in 2003, it was in part an extension of the content he’d been creating for several years. “Whether it was through web content or a branded magazine or a graphic on a T-shirt, I just wanted to tell a good story,” he says.

“I know I’m not the best and I’m not the coolest,” Bobby says in a way so honest it makes you think he is the best and the coolest. “I’m a total dork and we aren’t the greatest designers, but that’s not what it’s about.” For him, it’s about getting to know people and building something with them. He fell into streetwear by default, but he’s not what most people expect of streetwear.

“I grew up in the punk era, where there was no real distinction between the guy on stage and the teenager in the mosh pit,” he explains. “They could both share the mic. It’s a wonderful idea to have no boundaries and no rules in a community.” Growing up, he loved and respected brands like Stussy, Supreme, Freshjive and X-Large, without ever knowing anything about the designers and people involved in such brands.

“Most people don’t care because they just want to wear the logo, but I care,” he says. “The clothes are important, but I want to know who the people are. What are their political beliefs and what kind of music do they like?” The personalities and knowing those you’re working with are always paramount in Bobby’s opinion.

A decade ago, nothing about a brand-customer relationship was personal in the fashion industry. Peers and other brands told Bobby for years that what he was doing didn’t make any sense, but a few years later, social media happened and it became the standard for every company in the world to get on board. A bold claim—that Bobby would never say himself—is that he was running a business through social media before social media existed.

“I was taking photos of what I ate for lunch and clouds through the airplane window before that was a thing [laughs],” he says, acknowledging that social media has become a great thing in convenience and accessibility, but has taken a lot away from what made their brand unique.

In recent years, Bobby has found a new life focus in surfing. He lives near the beach and makes a point of getting wet every morning before suffering the Downtown Los Angeles-bound traffic to the office. “Surfing shares a place in my heart with my family and the brand, and sometimes it beats out both [laughs],” he says.

Working in an industry and city where people measure success by the car they drive, the size of their house, or how many stores they’ve opened, Bobby admits that surfing has helped him get his priorities straight. “I feel the most successful when I’m in the water with a surfboard,” he says. “The thought of, ‘This is all I need,’ puts everything else in perspective.”

The right wave will show any individual that success in dollars doesn’t mean anything in terms of happiness. “I feel like what most people are working towards every day of their life is something I already have each morning when I can sit out in the water,” Bobby explains. His surf obsession has influenced his approach to the brand, in that he’s set on doing what he thinks is right and gratifying, rather than what will make them money or not.

Being a streetwear icon, Bobby maintains an opinion of indifference when asked about the surf industry. It’s globally recognized that surfers are poorly dressed out of water and generally have bad style. “I’m a surfer through and through, but I cannot relate to anything brand-related in the core surfing world,” he admits. “I’m Korean-American in LA and I’m into street art and sneakers. I’m not the demographic. I’m like the square peg that won’t fit into the surf industry’s round hole.”

He reads The Surfer’s Journal and says he relates to it, but the surrounding surf culture and advertisements mean nothing to him. “I know there are cool surf brands out there, but I think I’m not educated enough,” he says. “Or maybe I just don’t care enough. A lot of the driving forces in the surf industry come out of Orange County and to be honest, it’s a bit alienating.” That’s probably true, but people like Bobby are a growing customer in the surf world, so sooner or later, there will be more brands that speak to him.

Surfing fits into Bobby’s hectic daily routine because he doesn’t waste time with sleep. “I have the worst sleep habits [laughs],” he admits. “I don’t sleep and it’s not by choice.” He is up by 5 a.m. to prep breakfast for his wife and kids before heading to the beach. After surfing, he works hands-on in the office all day, goes home for family time, then he’s back to work on the computer ‘til late. Like most creators, night is the time to thrive, where the ideas, designs, and writing get done.

“I try to get everything I love done in a day,” he says. “Time with my family, surfing, design, write, read, and hang out with all the people I work with, who are my only friends [laughs]. That’s a good day.”

As a man with a million side projects in motion, his biggest endeavor of the year is an upcoming documentary on the history of streetwear. “I’ve dedicated my entire 2015 to it,” he says. “I knew it was a tall order to take on, but a lot of the streetwear brands and designs I grew up knowing and loving as a kid through the ‘90s have largely disappeared.” The goal of the film is to chronicle a generation before it passes.

Bobby advocates that there’s no acknowledgment of the roots and original individuals of the streetwear movement, so he’s hoping the film will pay homage to that group of people. The format is more of an introspective focus on himself, questioning what happens to a brand when it’s core and poor, and when it starts to make money, how can it maintain integrity and authenticity? It’s a universal question that any creator has to ask at some point.

The documentary will be a good watch, where a lot of questions come out in the film that relate to any adult in transition, who wonders how and if they’ve become different in their ethics. It will launch in the spring and Bobby’s team will push it to a selection of film festivals.

Mixed into his schedule of running a global company, producing and starring in a documentary, raising two boys and surfing every day, Bobby somehow finds time to create regular content for The Hundreds’ media platforms. As he matures, his featured topics of interest do accordingly, where this year he attended a Democratic campaign rally for the 2016 presidential race and talked policy with Bernie Sanders before the senator took the stage. The long-form piece Bobby wrote on his site about the experience was brilliantly engaging. Next, he filmed and produced an online video about Lauren Wasser, a Californian model who lost her leg after acquiring Toxic Shock Syndrome from a generic tampon.

It’s obvious that Bobby is aiming to connect with his immense audience on the real-life topics than are much deeper than fashion apparel. “I want to be of service,” he says. “So in Lauren Wasser’s case, I wanted to help her share that story and it wasn’t about our brand at all.” It’s true. Nothing in the film is about selling clothing. It’s a humane piece about a girl who wants to raise awareness about what happened to her, so the next girl can learn more about Toxic Shock System and think twice about the tampons she buys.

Bobby’s current content creations aren’t new, but more bringing things full circle with his intentions. “One of our first T-shirts said, ‘VOTE OR DIE,’ during election time and we made stickers that said, ‘ANYONE BUT BUSH,’” he recalls, adding that he used to be a lot more vocal about where he stood politically. When the brand took off and their customer base grew, a lot of people probably didn’t want to hear such opinions from Bobby, but he made a point of speaking from the heart and taking a more serious approach to sharing stories. He’s still got the same social activist attitude that originally drew him to law school.

Arguably the most interesting—or at least entertaining—hustle of Bobby’s recent work is the Back to the Future collaboration The Hundreds just released. “When I was a kid, I loved that film because of all the pop culture aspects,” he says. “There was skateboarding, rock ’n’ roll music, Huey Lewis and the News… I was really into it.” Now that he’s older, he realizes the film still resonates with him because of the story. He recently interviewed the Co-Writer/Producer, Bob Gale, for The Hundreds Magazine, adding that he’s been working on this collaboration project for two years and is still as into it as ever.

The best part is the Bobby is the proud owner of a 1981 Delorean that he drives to work a few days a week. “I have to drive it because if I don’t, it dies,” he says. “Most days it’s cool, but some days it’s a struggle. It feels like you’re driving in a microwave. It’s so hot [laughs].”

The car is his baby and a perfect representation of his views on success. “I told myself when I was a kid, ‘If I’m ever successful, I’m gonna buy a Delorean,’” he says. “That was the only goal I had.”

When he turned 30, he bought one and now feels like he has everything. “I got my dream car, I got the people I love, and I got surfing. What more do I need, man?”

Bobby clearly states that he is not a success-driven person because he’s never been able to define success. “I still wouldn’t tell anyone that I’m successful,” he explains. “I have just as many struggles as anyone else, but success and failure are relative things.”

Kanye West was recently in the media wearing a sweater by The Hundreds and while most brands would consider that a major win, Bobby isn’t so sure. “A lot of people hate Kanye,” he says. “Maybe that means we’re mainstream now and where do you go after that? You go down.”

Representing the things he’s proud of, the opinions of his loved ones, and contributing to the broader ideas in life are what Bobby values most. “A lot of people in our industry model success on hurting other people’s feelings—making others feel inferior and acting like you’re better than them,” he argues, which goes back to the reason he drives a Delorean.

“When you drive a Ferrari around, it makes other people jealous, envious, and they think you’re a douchebag. No one thinks it’s cool.” Yes, that’s entirely true.

“But when you drive a Delorean around,” he continues. “Everyone else is in on the joke with you. They think it’s rad and it makes them happy. If I pull up beside someone, they’re like, ‘Dude, that’s amazing.’ If I can do the same thing as that with our brand, then I win.”

This article was published in LATER. magazine Issue 9, 2015.

Zaria Forman

By Eric Greene

In her studio on the edge of Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Zaria Forman sits on a wooden stool and rubs her fingers against a large piece of paper tacked to the wall. She does this most of the day, almost every day. Half-finished drawings hang on the walls, cover the floors, and sit in the corners of the room. A few completed pieces are framed in the hall. Those are rarities. Most of her art has sold, or been given away to friends in moments of generosity.

Anyone who would step into the studio, see her half-finished work, and watch her rubbing her fingers against the wall would recognize that this is not going to last. The career of Zaria Forman is at a tipping point. She has started to blow up, but is about to explode.

Zaria is from New York, and nobody is from New York—they’re just there now. Her story is nothing crazy for an aspiring artist. “I’ve been lucky,” she admits. “I got into a gallery in Chelsea [Manhattan] right out of College.” She never considered art as a career option until after college when she was travelling. The Chelsea gallery closed during the economic downturn, but it got her name on the radar and showed her the possibility of “making it” as an artist.

Would it be a copout to argue that her work is too good to not have doors opened for her? Nah—that seems pretty accurate. When you stand in her studio and look at the half-finished drawings, you understand why things are working out. There is no argument about skill or talent or creativity or uniqueness in her work. It’s just straight up good. No… Great. It’s impossibly to draw like that.

Zaria’s friend briefly dated a guy who was the graphic designer for the Netflix TV series, House of Cards. He got some of her pieces on the set and now the whole world has seen her work, even if they don’t know it. Zaria hasn’t watched the show. Too busy. Today, and for the next two months, she’s pulling endless hours on her stool, finishing pieces for her upcoming solo show in Seattle.

Anyways, let’s dig into her work. She calls them drawings—not paintings. Pastels on paper, worked with her fingers… Sounds pretty basic, yeah? Well, trust that you could never do what she does. Her current pieces—the stuff that’s causing the explosion—are all water scenes. One series is of icebergs in Greenland and the other of shore breaks in the Maldives.

“The Greenland series is about documenting the melting ice and the contribution to the sea level rising,” she explains. “The Maldives is the lowest lying country and will be the first place effected by the rising sea levels.”

You get it? Good. The scenes she draws are not poached from Google Images. She visits the places she documents. Her trip to the Maldives came after Greenland and although it was the place of contrast in her art’s message, she also “really wanted to go somewhere warm.”

These two trips scratch the surface of the globetrotting Zaria has done. She grew up following her mother, a professional landscape photographer, to areas like Chile, Turkey, India, and Indonesia. “She was always interested in the most remote landscapes, so we travelled with her a lot growing up,” Zaria says.

Greenland was a sailing voyage up the coast planned by Zaria’s mother, whose dream was to photograph the iceberg-ridden coastline, but sadly passed away from brain cancer in 2011. They had been to Greenland together prior, in 2006, and Zaria returned in 2012 to scatter her mom’s ashes and document the icebergs through her own medium. She’s now using her finished pieces to help raise awareness on climate change and donates portions of her sales to 350.org. “It think rising sea levels is one of the biggest issue that humanity faces,” she says. “I try to do what I can with my art because it’s insane what’s going to happen.” A dismal thought, but oh so accurate.

So, the show in Seattle is approaching and she’s got a growing list of commission work to tackle as her inventory continues to sell off. Zaria’s problems are good problems to have and though many in her position would stress with overwhelming anxiety, she is the calmest kind of cool. So skilled, she has nothing to lose.

 Her art (all of it) will sell for big money and hang on the walls in the homes of big spenders. “If I wanted to buy one, I couldn’t afford it,” she admits, laughing. Each drawing takes her hundreds of hours to complete, not to mention the time and investment of travelling to such remote spots to find her scenes. When, and if, she gets caught up on her workload, she will pack her bags and hit the road again. “I really want to go to Antarctica,” she reveals. “I’m not sure if that will be my next trip, but I’m hoping it will.”

She’s in the midst of applying for a grant through the National Science Foundation to make Antarctica happen. From there, she’s got many more destinations to get to, including another trip to Greenland. “I want to go back there and also to another island nation of the equator that’s drowning,” she says. Her idea is to track icebergs over time and make drawings of them as they melt. That, in relation to the whole rising sea level thing.

Zaria is the greatest kind of normal. Her friends are just like your friends. She should be one of your friends. She can hang. But when you stand in her studio and look at her drawings, you will know that she’s on a completely different level. Unlike her, the drawings have a shock value and ascendancy that pushes you onto your heels. To say they have “wow factor” sounds silly, but you will likely stand before one and release a long and quiet exhale that sounds like: “Whoooooaaaa…”

One day you will stand in a gallery or at a show or in the living room of a big spender in front of one of Zaria’s drawings. You will be mesmerized and feel strange, wanting to ask many questions. You will want to hang it on your own wall no matter what it costs and you will doubt your concept of beauty and you will want to go to Greenland. Because how did she draw that, anyway? It’s impossible.

See more at zariaforman.com

This article was published in LATER. magazine Issue 3.1, 2014.

Matt Johnson photo

Myanmar with Daniel Zvereff

By Eric Greene

The war-torn history of Myanmar, formerly Burma, makes for quite the story. The country’s long and painful ride toward modernity has been slow progress of events that don’t make a lot of sense. Like, how can a nation so rich in natural resources have one of the least developed economies on the planet? A big factor is the ongoing ethnic conflicts among the people living within Myanmar’s borders, where colonialism and post-colonial circumstances confined a bunch of drastically different cultures and everyone was told to play nice. Top that off with five decades of Military rule over a pariah state and you’ve got a full-on war territory that’s been closed off to the rest of the world. The last few generations have lived through severe human rights oppression under dictatorship by the military junta. A half-ass skeleton of modern government structure was established in 2011 and the borders began to open (slowly) to the rest of the world in 2012. Geographically, the place is a chunk of paradise, encircled by Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Laos, China, and a long stretch of bleach-blonde coastline on the warm Indian. It’s sure nice.

            This brings us to Daniel Zvereff, a New York City-based photographer with an itch for sketchy passport stamps. Daniel came up as a skateboarder from Portland, who dipped his feet in the big leagues, filming video parts that led to some of the most adventurous editorial trips the skate media world has ever attempted. Places like Russia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and eventually Myanmar. By the time Daniel rolled into Yangon in 2011, he had become a photographer, though he might not admit it. Myanmar made such an impression on him that it sidelined his skate career and transitioned his focus toward the arts (our words, not his). He returned to Myanmar in 2015 to document the cultural shift that is evolving daily as a result of the border breaking open to international tourism. Daniel is a traveler in the realist sense of the term. The following is a photo essay and conversation about his two very different trips to Myanmar.

“Most of Myanmar is affected by rolling blackouts. I was riding in the back of a truck, heading to the city center of Mandalay and was able to capture these two riders with a car’s headlights from the opposite direction. There weren’t many cars on the road at that time and motorcycles are still illegal in Yangon today, as far as I know. The car culture had exploded in my most recent visit. Almost every car is brand new and there are traffic jams everywhere.” 

What’s your background story with photography?

I’ve always done photography. I shot all through high school and when I started travelling to skateboard, I would take photos wherever I went, just to document my travels. My first trip to Asia was in 2007 when I went to Thailand. I was really young and told my mom I was meeting friends there, but I wasn’t. It was a really eye-opening experience to realize I could go anywhere and be able to meet people and find somewhere to sleep.

What is it about Asia that has led you to do so many trips there?

It’s not just Asia. All my family is Russian and they fled to China during the Communist Revolution. I wanted to follow that trail, so I went and did the Tran-Siberian Railway by myself. I don’t speak Russian, but I started learning on that trip. I ended up going on a skateboard trip there with a bunch of other skaters who I hadn’t met before.

So you went on that trip as a skateboarder rather than a photographer?

I was a skater, so was there to get tricks for my video part, but I also took photos for myself as a secondary thing. The photos from that trip are nothing great, but I’ve continued to go back to Russia and travel more. I eventually realized that photography was more important to me than skateboarding.

How recent was the transition to focus on being a photographer?

I’ve only been trying to push my photography for the last year. I always told myself I wasn’t ready and wanted to travel more. I never went to college and I think you can carry that as a sense of insecurity. Like, what did I do? I just went skateboarding all over the world, which is pretty fuckin’ cool, but you question if that was good enough, you know?

So why not pursue skateboard photography?

Honestly, I’ve never met a skateboard photographer who seemed really happy in their profession. I was always on the other side of the lens and seeing how skate photographers operated kind of turned me off of it. Like, do you want to be a 35-year-old skateboard photographer going on trips with a bunch of 20-year-olds who think they know everything? I also think, at least in terms of American skateboard media, that the photography is required to follow the same look. Every other aspect of photography wants your look, but skateboarding wants you to mimic one style and get in with the right crew. There are pioneers, like Atiba [Jefferson], but everyone else seems to copy that style. That’s fine and cool, but it never made me want to get a fisheye and a bunch of flashes to shoot skateboarding.

“Bagan experienced over 400 recorded earthquakes between 1904 and 1975. The last major earthquake was in 1975, damaging many temples, such as the Bupaya, which was left irreparable. Today there are 2,229 temples and pagodas, where there were originally more than 10,000. Most of the temples are in Old Bagan. In the ‘80s or ‘90s, the government forcefully relocated the villagers to what is now New Bagan, citing treasure hunting and looting as the reason. My first visit was really special. It was quiet with only a few people there and we were dropped off at a random place in the middle of nowhere at 5 a.m. to see the sunrise. I had no idea what the temples looked like, but could see the structures looming in the darkness. It felt extremely surreal and peaceful. We climbed up a temple and waited for the light to reveal the landscape. This year, I revisited the same site and more than 50 people sat waiting for the sunrise, talking loudly, gloating about their travels, and some were watching action movies on iPads without headphones.” 

You came to New York as an illustrator. How did that evolve into photography?

I still do a lot of illustration. When I was 18, I started doing daily drawings on my website and some basic HTML coding. I’d just draw random shit and was getting a couple hundred thousand hits a month. That got me into some big art and illustration design publications and then I got hired as an illustrator for Zoo York. That job ended up killing my career as an illustrator, but it brought me to New York, which changed the whole game. The economy crashed and I lost my job, and that got me more focused on photography. I met a very successful commercial photographer named Craig Cutler when I was traveling and he ended up hiring me as an assistant. That was a big education on the technical aspects of photography.

Do you consider yourself a travel photographer?

No, I don’t.

It’s easy to generalize mainstream travel photography as being what you see in Conde Naste or National Geographic, whereas you’ve done a great job of creating your own style that’s different.

Most travel photography these days seems like it portrays these very beautiful and polished images that represent travel. It’s like you’re trying to sell the place. Like, look how blue the ocean is and look how green the trees are because whatever you’re looking at needs to seem better than where you are. It’s like there’s pressure on the photographer to sell this lie about how beautiful these places are. It’s not my instinct to make things look perfect. Most of the beautiful places are untouched, where a lot of the people are usually poor and have a pretty shit life, so it doesn’t seem fair to make it look like it’s better than it really is.

That’s a good point. A lot of your work is portraiture. What’s your approach to capture those kinds of images?

Photographing people really depends on the culture and the country you’re in, and how you want to approach it. There’s either the complete portrait, where you’re trying to peer into the subject’s soul or whatever, and the in-the-moment kind of lifestyle capture. I always try to mix the two. A posed photo tends to have people cheese it up for the camera.

What are the people in Myanmar like around a camera?

They’re wonderful. I try to feel the situation to capture the photos I want. It’s not like India, where people run down the street to ask for a photo and then ask you for money. That’s the result of photo tourism. Like, how many aspiring photographers saw Steve McCurry’s shit from the ‘80s, where he’s tits-deep in floodwater and has all these beautiful portraits? You can fly to India easily from anywhere and try to take those same photos. Myanmar is not like that. There hasn’t been enough photo tourism yet to make it seem like a reward. It’s going to happen, but it’s in the early stages right now. In South America, people generally aren’t down with photos. It’s gone passed that to where you’ve gotta shoot from the hip everywhere.

What’s the premise of these two contrasting trips you’ve done to Myanmar?

The first time I went was in 2011 and it was kind of a mind-fuck. We showed up in Yangon at night and it was dark because there was no electricity aside from a few generators. There was this tiny TV plugged into a generator and 30 people were sitting in the street watching a Burmese film on it. There were barely any cars on the roads and the only ones were from the ‘60s and ‘70s. A suicide bomber blew up a train station when I was there and the government cut the Internet in the whole country so whoever was behind it couldn’t report the information.

“A young boy poses for me somewhere in rural Yangon.” 

What about the second trip?

I went back again this year and it was a totally different place. There were so many brand new cars on the road and traffic jams everywhere. A bunch of huge hotels were being built and all the electricity was on. I stayed in a hotel with wifi and a flat screen TV on the wall.

Was it hard to get into the country before it was officially open to tourism?

It honestly wasn’t hard to go there before they opened the country. I think a lot of people just didn’t know you could go. We went on a skate trip with a full crew and a bunch of camera gear and it was fine. We flew into Yangon because it was sketchy in the areas around the border to enter by land. We were followed often by the secret police and people would approach us in the streets, risking their lives to pass us notes that asked us to help them cross the border into Thailand. There were no ATM’s in the country, so you had to bring cash and exchange it there. The military government argued that their currency was worth way more than it actually was, so if you exchanged it at the airport, you’d get nothing for it, but if you exchanged it on the black market, you’d get a fair value. Outside of the country, their money wasn’t even recognized as a real currency.

Was it sketchy to travel around for weeks with all your cash on you?

No, it wasn’t. That’s one of the many beauties of Myanmar. You fall in love with the place because if you have a bunch of money in your pocket, people know that if they got ahold of it, they could live for ten years on it, but they would never rob you. Maybe that’s because punishments are so severe, but it’s also because they’re good people. It’s a special culture that I’ve experience almost nowhere else. In most other countries, you’re just a tourist there to look at some temples and no one gives a shit about you, but it’s different there and you feel it right away.

Did you experience anything crazy on that first trip?

Not really. It’s seriously one of the safest places you could visit. One of the skateboarders I was with dislocated his elbow really bad and we couldn’t find a hospital. And we partied one night in this club, where they had these girls doing a runway fashion show, but with choreographed dance routines. We were the only people in there and it was so corny. The club was up an elevator inside an empty building and it was super weird.

Was it difficult to get into the cities before the country was open?

We tried to go into the new capital, Naypyidaw, but were denied when we got there.

That’s the new capital that was relocated from Yangon in 2008?

As far as I know, the U.S. Navy went in with relief efforts after Cyclone Nargis and the people got all paranoid that they would be invaded, so they consulted a palm reader and asked where they should build a new capital inland that would be more protected. They put like 80 percent of the country’s money into building this metropolis super-city. There are multi-lane highways and huge buildings in it, but it’s almost completely uninhabited. We arrived on a bus and got turned around by the military right away. They put us up in this theme park they built, where all the foreign diplomats would stay.

What was a Myanmar theme park like in 2011?

It was a miniature version of the country, built to a smaller scale. All the main temples and cities were designed within the theme park and there were these beautiful new hotels you could stay in for 20 bucks a night. There are these mountains in the north of the country where you can snowboard and one of the general’s sons was really into snowboarding, so they built a shitty concrete skate park in the theme park for the kid. There’s a small skate scene in Yangon and a bunch of the kids followed us to Naypyidaw to skate the park with us. The city is now open to visitors, so I really want to go back again to see it and then to the North.

Were there other tourists there?

There were tourists there in 2011, but more like younger solo adventurers and then some older British expats.

Like sex tourists?

No. I think most sex tourists just go to Bangkok. It’s not like that in Myanmar. It was a British colony, so I think there’s still some leftovers lingering who want to be there. The ones we encountered would be sitting around at night, talking about the good old days and complaining about how things were changing.

Was there a whole different kind of tourism there this year?

The trip this year felt a lot more like being in Thailand. I went to Bagan to watch the sunrise over the temples, where it was so serene and empty when I did it in 2011. This time, there were families watching movies on tablets and 40 European tourists having a loud conversation about how they don’t like tourists. All the temples are now gated off, whereas you used to be able to walk around and explore inside them all. It’s a good thing they’ve changed that because they’re preserving things, but it’s different.

“Waiting on the bus, commuting to work, and sporting the common style of Thanaka. Sometimes it’s a more decorative pattern, but this one is a toned down application. Thanaka is a yellowish-white cosmetic paste made from ground bark and a distinctive feature of Myanmar. It’s commonly applied to the face, and sometimes the arms of women and girls. I worried that I’d see less of this unique aspect of Burmese culture on my second trip, but it was still present and maybe even more prevalent with men applying it.” 

Do the local people treat tourists differently now?

It’s a whole different ball game now with the same rackets you see in other Asian countries, where kids try to sell you postcards or whatever. The clothes are different and there’s way more outside influence.

Are your images from the first trip an effort to document how things were at that time?

On the first trip I was there to skateboard and I was only taking photos for my own experience, trying to document the journey. I wasn’t wanting to create any sort of project with the photos. I was broke at the time and the American economy was still wonky, so spending the winter in Asia was actually a good idea financially. I returned this year because I wanted to see the country again before I didn’t recognize it and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I still can’t stop. The place to go now is in the North, where they’re opening up a bunch more cities you can go to. It’s a different ethnicity in the North near the Chinese border, so it would be a much different experience to travel there. I was with my girlfriend on this last trip and she wanted to go see some crazy places, so I thought, “I know where we need to go,” and took her to Myanmar.

How impactful is it to be there on the ground and witness how fast things are changing?

It’s a fascinating time in Myanmar right now because two worlds are colliding. It’s a unique moment in history. Before it was special because it was untouched. You couldn’t get Coca-Cola. You had to have their version of everything if you were there. It was like going into the old world. Now you can have it all. The opportunity is there.

And that accessibility is only going to compound from here on.

Exactly. It’s almost like 1970 became 2015 overnight, so how do you think those people feel when someone knocks on their door and says, “Here’s an iPhone, buddy. Send me an iMessage later.” They don’t know what the fuck that is.

Technology must be one of the biggest adjustments.

I was sitting on a bus the first trip there and a farmer sat beside me. I thought, “I’m gonna blow this dude’s mind,” so I started showing him photos of snow in New York City on my phone. He was blank-faced. It didn’t even register to him, so he just turned away to look out the window.

Aside from traveling and documenting, do you do any commercial photography when you’re home?

I don’t do commercial photography because my aesthetic doesn’t lend towards it. That’s more my fault and it’s not that I’m too good for it or anything, but I don’t produce images that showcase product well or work for branding.

What’s your career approach with photography? You don’t sell prints or take commission work that a lot of other aspiring photographers would be all over.

I have more of a long term approach and feel like I’m in the first year of it, and I haven’t produced any work that I think is great. The greatest photographers out there are producing images that are changing the world.

How so?

The right images can teach people about something and change everything. It’s about discovering something and presenting it the right way. I want to tell a really great story in an honest way and in my own style.

Do you feel like you need to continue traveling with your camera and something will just cross your path, and you’ll think, “This is it?”

The travel angle is a result of what I’ve been doing since I was a kid—traveling and skating and searching for shit. But I don’t feel like I need to always be somewhere else. I mean, New York City is somewhere else for most people. Something incredible is happening wherever you are, so it’s about being aware and being open to your surroundings. 

See more of Daniel’s work at: zvereff.com

“A young Buddhist monk poses for me at the Shwedagon Pagoda. I didn’t observe many differences between my two trips there, aside from there being more people.” 

This article was published in LATER. magazine Issue 8, 2015

The Danny Fuller Interview

By Eric Greene

Danny Fuller is a professional at every level. He takes shit seriously. He’s the kind of guy who you email about something and he phones you five minutes later to discuss. He gets things done. Born and raised in Hawaii and now based in Los Angeles, Danny has lived the largest life of a pro surfer, and several other lives outside of it. His social and professional networks are larger than anyone’s—a pure reflection of his character as a cool person and good human. Now a family man, he splits his time chasing big swells to the world’s heaviest breaks with logging long hours in his art studio, working on creations for upcoming exhibits. After hitting it big in the fashion world as a model, his hands are now filthy in the insular and prestigious world of fine art. This is a retrospect of Danny Fuller, from past to present.

Were you born and raised on Kauai?

Yeah, I grew up in Hanalei and moved to Oahu when I was 15 to chase the dream of becoming a professional surfer. I was in the tenth grade when I told my mom I wanted to do homeschooling. She said I needed to get a job if I was going to do that, so I told her that my job would be professional surfing. That was the beginning of it all [laughs].

Did you first get into surfing through your friends? Wasn’t your dad a lifeguard?

No. I don’t know where that statement first got misunderstood, but my dad lived on Maui and was never really a part of my life. My sister and I were raised by my mother and my uncles on Kauai. My uncles were all surfers and would always take us to the beach growing up when my mom was working and raising two kids as a single parent.

How did you first break into the fashion world with your modeling career?

It was quite random. I was living on the North Shore at the time and people were always coming there for shoots. I was asked a few times to stand in on editorials or in backgrounds and whatnot, and then did a show called “The Boarding House” that aired on WB. After that, I was returning home from the best surf experience of my life in Tahiti when my friend, Joel Tudor, convinced me to come visit him in New York first. I ended up staying there for a while and got connected with an agent. That was the start of the modeling.

Did you move to New York as soon as you got an agent?

Well, I got a girlfriend on that first trip there and a few weeks went by, where I was oblivious and didn’t really know what was happening. It was the partying time of my life [laughs]. There was a lot of back and forth, doing trips for work, and by the time I was 25 I was fully bicoastal between New York and LA. My girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife [Tori Praver], needed to be in New York fulltime for her work as a model and I wanted to pursue my work as an artist, so we moved there for two years. It seemed like the most ridiculous decision to chase a pipe dream, but looking back on it now, I don’t think there was another option for us at the time.

So in the prime of your professional career as a big wave surfer, you were living in New York fulltime?

Yeah. I was very fortunate to stay relevant in the surfing world while living there. I had just starting working for RVCA and I told the founder, Pat Tenore, that I was moving to New York to work in art and fashion. He was like, “That’s fantastic!”

Did you grind for waves on the East Coast or only do destination trips for big swells?

I told myself that I needed to become a winter warrior, so I brought a bunch of boards and wetsuits out with me. I found myself on the A train out to Rockaway one morning, where the waves do get really good, but this particular morning was fuck-you freezing and the waves were so bad. After that, I started to really monitor swells and would go weeks or even months without surfing. I made sure that I was on top of it for south swells hitting Tahiti because I needed those opportunities. It was a fine contrast of the Concrete Jungle and Mother Nature when I’d bounce between New York and doing surf trips.

How did the mainstream city life change you as a person?

There is no other place like New York City. The pulse of the city and its energy infected me the first day I was there. Being there had such a significant impact on my life as a person and as an artist. I definitely look back on the two years I spent there fulltime, where I was young and so driven to further my interests and experiences. I was so vetted in having a better understanding of art and theory, and everything is so accessible for that. It was home for a time and I took something from there that will always be with me. But looking back on it now, I think, “How the fuck did I live there for two years?”

Did you catch heat from your surfing peers when you first moved to New York to pursue modeling?

Not really, because I was still able to maintain the lifestyle of a big wave pro surfer. Juggling the two careers has been challenging at times, but people seem to be supportive and inspired by it. The people I’ve known my whole life know that I’ve always been interested in art and they’ve seen me take the risks to make it happen. I wouldn’t say I’m successful in any way, but I’ve put myself out of my comfort zone and done what it takes in the art world, just like I’ve always done in big wave surfing.

The macho Hawaiian surf culture seems so opposite from the fashion world. Did you have any reservations or weird experiences when you started pursuing two contrasting careers?

Oh my god. Coming from Hawaii to the fashion world was so foreign to me. The first editorial shoot I did, they put me in a Speedo, rubbed a tanning agent on my legs, and put extensions in my hair. I had a fucking meltdown. I called my agent and was like, “What the fuck is this? I have an image I need to maintain and this is fucking bullshit.” I learned quickly that the fashion world is what it is [laughs]. It’s the polar opposite of where I came from and I really didn’t enjoy being a model, but I met some incredible friends and had great experiences through it. I also worked with the most amazing photographers, who were so open to my curiosity about photography and really helped me by sharing their techniques. That was always what got me through the day doing that job. I would try to absorb everything that was happening around me.

You worked on a Chanel campaign with Kathryn Bigelow [Academy Award winner for The Hurt Locker and Director of Point Break]. How did you get that role? 

That’s a funny story. It originally came together through my agent, but they were holding castings all over the globe. I went to one in Santa Monica and they were casting for a guy who looked like a model, but was a semi-professional surfer. I showed up and there were all these dudes oiled up and doing pushups with their boards they probably picked up at a garage sale on the way there. I isolated myself as soon as I got there because I knew I couldn’t associate myself with the other guys. They told us to go down to the beach, catch a wave, and come back up to look in the camera and tell them about ourselves. The waves were totally shitty, but I rode one, came up to the camera and said, “My name is Danny Fuller and I’m a professional big wave surfer, unlike the rest of these fucking guys.” It sounds cocky, but I needed to set myself apart. My agent called me a few hours later and said that Kathryn wanted to meet me.

Did your career in fashion first get your interested in the art world?

Tori and I are both from Hawaii, but we met in New York City. At that time, I was doing fashion stuff and slowly pushing forward with my photography. Spending time in that environment for my work and relationship led to developing more interest in art and filling the void of my day-to-day routine with photography being my creative practice.

Robyn Penn photo.

As a surfer, your double life is an anomaly. Does it add balance to escape the surfing scene sometimes?

Surfing has ultimately given me everything I have in life. All my experiences in having a relationship with the ocean and Mother Nature have taught me how to make sacrifices for my future and my family’s future. I live in the city by choice. I’d love to be in Hawaii just chilling on the beach every day, but I can’t turn my back on everything I’ve worked towards. My wife and I both work really hard for the opportunities we have.

You’re friends with Julian Schnabel. How did you meet him?

I’m really good friends with Julian. We met in Hawaii years ago when I really knew nothing about art or who he was. At the time, I didn’t know much of anything, but he came to the North Shore with Herbie Fletcher and I was so drawn to his presence. We had great conversations and got along really well as soon as we met, and we surfed together a bunch at Pipeline and Ehukai Beach.

Julian Schnabel surfs Pipeline?

Well, when it’s small [laughs]. He’s a good surfer, but when you live in a city, you don’t find yourself in the water as much as you’d like and you can experience the term of being “rusty” [laughs]. I can relate. It’s funny because when I later moved to New York, his name would come up sometimes in various settings and I’d say, “Oh, that guy is actually a good friend of mine,” and people would not take me seriously. I’ve been very fortunate to have a relationship with him. He’s been an encouraging and inspiring friend from early on when I first wanted to share my work.

That must have been a major confidence boost to have someone like him to confide in when you first decided to pursue art.

Absolutely. When you put yourself out of your comfort zone, there will always be moments of defeat or thoughts on giving up, but that’s what good friends are for—to push you and pick you back up. I hold Julian highly as a friend and a mentor.

When did you first start showing your artistic side to the public?

I believe it was in 2007. It was so bizarre and seems absolutely crazy looking back on it now. When I put my mind to something, I won’t stop until I achieve the final goal that I first visualized. So when I started working on my first series of Moonscapes, I knew I wouldn’t settle for anything less than having a solo show in New York City. I first shared the work with mentors and influential people I knew, and was encouraged to push forward with it. I went on a surf trip to Tavarua, Fiji, where I met a guy named Scott Murphy. We hit it off on a big night of debauchery and the following morning I showed him my work. He offered to connect me with some gallerists in New York. He believed in me more than I believed in myself and ended up financing my first show at a time when I could barely afford to produce one final print. I can’t thank him enough for doing that and he’s become one of my best friends who has been along for the ride since Day One.

Was the debut show a success?

Yeah, it was. I sold enough to pay Scott back and break even. From there, I was able to sell some more work directly and have three more solo shows. I eventually got to the point of being able to finance my own shows and not worry about the money behind production. The last show I had was Meditation on Blue, which was on Long Island with Adam Lindemann and we sold it out.

What are the differences in character between Danny Fuller the surfer and Daniel Fuller the artist?

When I first approached art in a public capacity, I felt like “Daniel” sounded more professional, but I also wanted to separate my practice as an artist from the surfer Danny Fuller. I didn’t want to be categorized as a “surf artist” in any way or form. I realized over time and through a text that Adam Lindemann put together that my relationship with the ocean as a surfer truly goes hand in hand with how I approach my practice as an artist.

Do you categorize your art as photography?

It’s interesting because I’ve been doing it for quite a few years now and your work and vision constantly evolve. The medium is photography, but I look at it like an alternative practice to painting, where I document a painterly performance with my camera. Like, the natural elements and movements of the ocean and the wind are my key subject matters. I feel like I’m capable of trying to evoke the emotion and force of the ocean through the photos I create.

Considering the photographer as an artist, what are your thoughts on the technical aspects of photography and quality of camera equipment vs. the pure artistic eye?

I guess there’s a lot more time and thought process that goes into my work than just taking a photo of something. I’m aiming to capture a moment of time that offers a feeling or emotion. I mean, these days, who the fuck isn’t a photographer? Look at how good our iPhones are and how many cameras are available and how much amazing imagery is already out there. I definitely think about wanting to be a fine art photographer and questioning how realistic that is, but I feel like there’s a lot more depth to my work than it just being a snapshot.

What about presentation? Like, size and print material of the end product?

Over time, I’ve realized the largest scale possible is what provides the best experience. I went from 30X30 to 40X60 and now 70X70, where I feel like it offers something physical to the viewer.

You’re working on an upcoming show now and recently opened a new studio?

I’m working on a big show right now for late summer or early fall here in LA. I moved into a new studio last October, which is my first proper creative workspace, and wow, what a game changer. It’s been so good to have my own spot to spend time with the work and I have several printers to do proper physical viewing. Looking at a JPEG is just not the same experience [laughs]. I’m spending a lot of time there right now, trying to put all the work in context for this upcoming show.

Has becoming a father made you focus more on art over big wave surfing?

Being a father has been the best chapter of my life and I feel like everything I experienced in life before this prepared me for it. It’s a lot of work, but at the same time it pushes you to make the best of every day and feed your full potential—whatever it is you’re doing. It’s inspiring, but I don’t think it’s really changed my priorities with art or surfing. I wish I still had the freethinking of a child.

So being a family man hasn’t altered your mindset on surfing waves of consequence?

I’ve experienced some very tragic events that have happened before my eyes as a big wave surfer—things that have put a lot of things in context for me. I feel comfortable and know that I have no ego or jealousy involved when I’m surfing. I’m doing everything for myself and my own personal experience. Therefore, I have the confidence and judgment in my own abilities. Knowing that calms me down and allows me to make calculated decisions. 

Your wife is a successful designer. You two work in different mediums, but do you feel like you collaborate together, creatively?

With the four careers we have going, it can be pretty hectic at times, but we help each other out as much as we can. We have a really full schedule and things are always changing, but we keep it together and find inspiration in each other. To see what she’s achieved with her swimwear line is absolutely incredible.

Outside of your legacy as a big wave surfer, as well as your career in fashion, what do most people not know about you as an artist?

I feel like most people don’t really understand me as an artist or they have preconceived judgments of me trying to do photography. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but I’d really like everyone to physically experience my work firsthand one day. I’m going to continue doing what I do because I love the experience of it and the path it’s taken me on. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I’m going to try to be the best for myself and everyone else.

This article was published in LATER. magazine Issue 7, 2015.