Awakenings

Home to the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and the American Stock Exchange, New York City is undoubtedly the financial capital of the world. And what do people in the financial capital of the world do with their money? They spend it. From those tables on the sidewalk selling knock-offs to the upper class stores which require appointments, shopping in the Big Apple can be fun, fast paced, slow, boring, you name it. Hence my theme, Shopping in NYC, has to do with just that, with the primary focus being on the people themselves.

With so many possible venue choices, the first that came to mind was Chinatown. However, I began the project with a different theme in mind, Free NYC (having to do with free items in the city.) I thought that Chinatown would be the perfect place for such a theme and it turned out that I was unable to find anything involving the word free. However while walking past the people, I realized I could do the opposite than free, which is commercial exchange. Shopping (as we simply call it) is defined as the act of seeking goods, primarily for purchase. As stated before, this can come in a countless number of formats. In today’s world, a large portion of shopping is done on the internet, which means the person can be sitting alone in a chair, in their bed, at work, at a bar, etc, with very little to possible no interaction with the products themselves or others. In the real world, interaction is everything. People like to touch what they buy, try it before the purchase, maybe even smell it, taste it, whatever their heart desires. Capturing such interactions is what I hoped to accomplish in selection of my theme.

Since I came up with my theme in Chinatown I just began taking pictures right where I was. As all New Yorkers know (or will know after reading this) Chinatown is the place to be to get some great knock-offs (replicas, or fakes of expensive companies such as Coach, Prada, Louis Vuitton, etc.) The logical question that everyone asks is, “How can this be legal?” Well, there are two types of knock-offs, the legal kind and the illegal kind. The legal kind resembles the real product without ever violating the trademark of the company. The illegal kind violates the trademark. Shopping in Chinatown will find you both, predominantly the illegal kind, as people want to get the brand name without paying the brand name price. While there have been police crackdowns on the sale of knock-off handbags, Chinatown sellers have resorted to using a man with a flyer who approaches women or anyone else who might be interested in a handbag and if they are, leads them to a counter or a shop in which there are hidden knock-offs. I attempted to take a picture of the men holding these flyers but was unable to do so as they purposely hide their advertising (which is the size of a 5×7 sheet of paper) in order to avert any sting operations. Thus I began taking pictures of what I could, such as women trying on knock-offs, men looking for knock-offs, and both genders negotiating for a better price. But Chinatown is more than just knock-offs as there are a countless number of grocery vendors. The location I was at, Canal Street near the corner of Lafayette Street, was packed with people buying groceries, fish, and of course the aforementioned knock-offs. Taking pictures of all the activities was no problem as almost all the shops were outside (except for the handbag dealers who were trying their hardest to avoid any police activity). There wasn’t a single question from anyone as to why I was taking pictures or even an objection to the pictures I was taking (there were a bunch of tourists also taking pictures, so what I was doing was nothing out of the ordinary.)

The following day I joined my parents who were going to Circuit City and BJ’s in Brooklyn. Circuit City, an electronics store, provided an entirely different venue than Chinatown. Obviously, the first difference was that it was inside. Furthermore, the store was not crowded, and instead of seeing people running around trying to get bargains, they were methodically analyzing the products (due in part to the high prices of items such as televisions.) Again, nobody really noticed I was taking any pictures till an employee came over to me and told me I was not allowed to take any pictures in the store due to security reasons. It was fine, because I had already taken all the pictures I would need. After Circuit City, my parents and I walked over to BJ’s, which can be seen as an indoor Chinatown, though without the bargaining. For those that don’t know, BJ’s is the equivalent of Costco, which is a warehouse club that sells a variety of items at low prices but in high volume. Thus in order to buy toilet paper, you could only buy a 12 pack, instead of a 6 pack, but you end up paying less per roll due to the high volume. Essentially, you are getting more bang for your buck. My focus in BJ’s ended up being children, as they were the most interesting subjects. Though there were many employees who certainly saw me taking pictures, it didn’t seem anyone cared. For the third time, none of my subjects noticed they were being photographed till finally a little girl looked directly at me while I was taking her picture and later a young boy not only noticed me taking pictures of him but also told his parents. As I walked away, I heard his parents ask, “Who?” and when I turned around the boy pointed to me as if I was a criminal and his parents were the police. The boy’s expression was telling me, “HIM, HE DID IT, GET HIM QUICK HE IS GETTING AWAY.” Well fitting for my role, I kept moving and avoided the police as I did not care to find out how his parents were going to react (some people might think only a psycho would take pictures of children inside of a store, and personally, I did not feel like explaining my actions.)

Certainly shopping in NYC goes far beyond the three venues that I choice. There are always the large department stores that sell clothing to all ages and sized, and also the small boutiques that carry clothing targeted for specific audience, or even supermarkets that carry food. I felt the three venues that I chose were rather closely related in their audiences (as there was a wide variety of people of all ethnicities) but the method in which the people went about shopping in each place differed due to the products being offered.

Shopping is a part of all of our lives, but as with the skyscrapers in our city, we never really stop and look around to appreciate our surroundings. The photographs I have taken will hopefully help you appreciate the fine art of shopping, and maybe next time you will notice something interesting when you are shopping, and possibly even pull out that camera phone to take a quick snapshot. But remember, the next time you shop, I may be taking a picture of you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 1:31 am and is filed under