As of today I’ve been living in NYC for 1 year. How things can change in just 365 days – especially in such a fast paced environment. When I first arrived I was on a mission to find a job, an apartment, meet people, find friends and integrate myself into the New York way of life. Now that I’m in a routine, comfortable and settled it can at times feel like one giant rat race. Sometimes reflecting back, it would be nice to go back to day 1 where everything was new with no sense at all of what to expect next. Here’s to Day 1: hello NYC……
Awaiting for NYC at LAX
Flying into JFK
Taxi Rank at JFK
Meet the lovely Amanda De Simone
Amanda takes me to eat Soul food for my first meal in NYC at Mama’s
Even though severely jet lagged I still managed to go out. My first night out experience in NYC was……RODEOS?
And Cowboys??
I saw this on the wall at the Rodeo Bar. Smiled. And called it a night.
If you don’t know about the true story of the Ametiyville Horror, it goes something like this: George and Kathleen Lutz and their three children moved into a house in Amityville, Long Island, New York. They did so knowing full well that thirteen months before, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. had shot and killed six members of his family at the house. After 28 days, the Lutzes left the house, claiming to have been terrorized by paranormal phenomena while living there. Numerous of books and films have been made from this story.
We decided to do a detour on our way back from the Hamptons to check the house out. Why someone would ever move into this house and live there is beyond me…
< day 323: yo yo
A group of us Aussie and American orphans spent the Christmas break in a very cosy house up in the Hamptons. It was amazing to have a White (ish) Christmas, to breath fresh air, to be surrounded in open space, to see reindeers and to be able to spend Christmas with a close group of friends – Priceless.
< day 308
Tonight I watched the New York Knicks play the Charlotte Bobcats at Madison Square Gardens. It was my first basketball game and I thought it was one of the most fantastic sporting events I’ve seen.
< day 304: first snow
Tonight was the first snow in NYC for this winter. This is a shot outside my apartment. It was a pretty massive snow storm.
< day 303: A Rockerfeller proposal
Today the Rockefeller Ice Skating Rink was cleared out momentarily so this guy could proposed to his fiance. She said Yes. It was very romantic.
< day 302: opposites
My First Book Project is a JWT initiative to help children in disadvantaged communities learn to read. Ad agencies are cluttered with mountains of Stock Photography books rendered useless by online libraries. These books have beautiful, colourful and rich imagery. The idea is to write descriptions of what is displayed on each page of the book and distribute them to disadvantages communities worldwide. These will become learner books to help children in these communities learn to read. The idea originate from the JWT South Africa office, where only 20% of schools in South Africa have libraries, to help solve the massive literacy problem the country faces. This initiative has now been put forward to all JWT office globally. The photos below are from the NYC office. View more details here.
< day 298: piccy sticks
Today I went to the Experience Music Project in a museum building designed by Frank Gehry at the Seattle Center. This place was on the top of my list of places to visit as Seattle gave birth to so many great Grunge bands such Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, Nirvana, Alice in Chains. I really got to re-live my adolescent days. Not to mention it’s where ledgend Jimi Hendrix is from and where Ray Charles and Quincy Jones made their names.
< day 287: entering downtown seattle
I spent most of my day flying across the continent of America to Seattle for work today. This is a shot that I took in a cab from the airport as we’re entering downtown Seattle.
< day 286: help me oprah i’m crazy
Last weekend I had the pleasure of getting out of the city and visiting Storm King Art Center. Storm King Art Center is an open air museum with a core collection of pieces by modern masters and contemporary sculptors that has built up over the past 40 years. Storm King Art Center is situated in Mountainville around 1hr’s drive from the city to upstate New York.
This was the first time I’ve escaped the none stop hecticness of the city since arriving to enjoy fresh country air and the beautiful fall landscape of New York. It was everything I had hoped for – the scenery was spectacular and the experience was unforgettable.
< day 257: halloween new york 2009
A large part of my life at JWT for the past 2 months has been planning and executing a marketing campaign for the The 2010 International ANDY Awards.
Elect The Jury is a project to crowdsource this year’s ANDY Awards jury panel.
The idea is to challenge the status quo of ‘just another creative award show’ – ie. Having a jury panel of ‘Usual Suspects’ from large, well established, traditional agencies giving each other pats on the back. The desired outcome of the project is to have a diverse and fair mix of global creative innovators from different disciplines, gender, regions and outliers. You can vote for the likes of Banksy, David Byrne, Ben Silverman, Marc Jacobs, Noel Fielding, Johnathan Harris, Sheppard Fairy, Jimmy Wales, John Favreau, Suroosh Alvi and Michel Gondry to judge your work.
The idea, a brainchild of Ty Montague, JWT’s CCO and President, has caught a lot of media attention and caused quiet a stir within the industry. One of the most interesting campaigns I’ve worked on….
Elect The Jury
Become a Fan
< day 244: sounds of silver
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