This will be a shorter one, but don't worry the book corner is still here! A lot of you have told me that it is your favorite section. :)
Working on…
This month, I did a full website migration. It kind of fell into my lap, and I just rolled with it.
I came down with a mild version of Covid, some endemic strain that’s been making the rounds in Amsterdam. The bug slowed me down and gave way to some very relaxed, easygoing evenings, where I let myself rest. That rest opened me up a bit, and my mind wandered back to the idea of finally playing with a new framework I’ve been meaning to try.
The platform my website was built on essentially died back around 2021 (I think). Resources disappeared, support became community-driven, and eventually that died too. Since it’s always a good idea to keep things up to date (especially for security reasons), this had been lingering in the back of my mind for a while. So I gradually started rebuilding things: from the technical scaffolding, to the design, and finally the actual content of it.
Once the new site was sitting ready, I held off on the big bang migration. Mainly because I work in IT, and I know how delicate deployments can be. But eventually, I found myself in the right headspace with some free time, and I finally went for it.
If you’ve got any feedback, I’d love to hear it!
Summer suddenly hit, and with it, my desk time more or less disappeared. So there hasn’t been much progress on editing or releasing work lately.
That being said, I did drop off all my color film from 2024 at the lab — a small but satisfying milestone. Next up is the black and white batch, which I’ll be developing at home. That means a long stretch of evenings where my kitchen transforms into a chaotic little film lab, and I live off microwave meals just to keep the setup intact and running. All of this will follow with the arduous task of scanning and the occasional release of some work as part of that scanning process. Basically when an image “speaks to me” I tend to make a post :)
Book corner
Some funky legs, textured leggings, bright skirts, ripped tights, stylish boots. With a minimalist single-formula approach to photos, yet containing so much variety, style, and personality, NY LEGS was a instant hit with me. It was an Instagram account that I found way back in the days. So long ago that I cannot remember how I stumbled upon it. The project is by Stacey Baker that has gathered hundreds of images of women’s legs, shot on the streets of New York.
Each photo is framed the same way — just legs and shoes, usually from the hips down, always centered. That repetition might sound limiting, but that formula is what allows the people to fill the frame with their uniqueness. With every turn of the page, there’s something new: patterns, textures, bold colors, soft neutrals, heavy boots, delicate flats. It’s a celebration of individuality!
During an Unseen event in Amsterdam - an annual photo fair with an amazing book market - I spotted bright yellow NY cab color book. By its cover it became immediately obvious to me that that cute Instagram account has translated into the real world. Its such a cute little book and so well crafted, I had to get it.
The whole project was shot with an iPhone, and was a huge inspiration for me to start my Destroyed Umbrellas project using the same method too. The camera that is always with you :)
There’s a raw, honest feel to the images — no filters, no tricks. Stacey's way of working consisted in spotting someone with an interesting look, give her 15-second pitch, and then scout for a nearby wall — sometimes landing on a perfect background, sometimes not. There’s a spontaneity baked into every shot that keeps the series fun.
I also love how the repetition becomes a kind of quiet structure that allows other elements — fashion, posture, body language, even the texture of New York sidewalks to pop. Stacey talks about the legs becoming almost sculptural, and you can feel that. There’s an abstract quality that sneaks in, especially when viewed in sequence. It’s not just street style — it’s shape and stance and setting, evolving into its own visual language.
What started as a casual Instagram experiment has turned into a tightly composed, visually addictive series, one that reads like urban portraiture, fashion study, and typology all at once. NY LEGS doesn’t try to explain or categorize the people it pictures. It simply shows them, cropped and centered, quirky and real — and that’s exactly what makes it such a joy to look at.
After picking up this book, I always had a quiet wish to do something very similar with my Destroyed Umbrellas series. That project eventually took shape in a different way — as part of the Trash trilogy published by Bump Books. But the spirit was the same: something small, easy, and unpretentious. Whether it ends up as a book or a zine, NY LEGS is a great reminder that a quirky idea, followed with care and consistency, can turn into a surprisingly rich visual archive.
Inspiration
The selection above is very much a combination of scanning my book shelf and locking my eyes with the bright book yellow cover and suddenly hearing Joey Diaz shouting in my own mid: THEY GOT DO SOMETHING!
I simply love the passion and flash escalation of this man about this exact thing which I love in other human beings too. They need to have an edge to them.
For Stacey Baker it was New York legs, for me it’s Broken Umbrellas, so much so, that my friends say they think of me every time they see one, and will, on occasion, take a photo and send it to me. Quite some photos on the Destroyed Umbrella feed are from submissions, since they became so prevalent during the peak of the project.
Nowadays I take way less photos for this project, it all became a bit too repetitive, but, every time a new unique composition jumps to my eye will make me take my phone out and capture one more destroyed umbrella.
So what do you do?
YOU GOT TO DO SOMETHING!!!
Taste of home
This month I went to visit Ioana's opening for her project Taste of home. A very simple but quintessential experience of living abroad. You will miss food from home, there’s no escaping this feeling, so you will have to pursue it and do it yourself. Such journey is encompassed with a lot of feelings and emotional charge too.
Ioana has a very complete website, and an ongoing exhibition that is beautifully displayed with a portrait of the person, some environmental portraits of the cooking, finalized with a photo of the dish itself.
I encourage you all to visit her website and to read the interviews in there.
Take for yourself whatever there is to take from this project. I think all experiences of this phenomenon are very personal, so I will let you develop your own and if you wanna ask about mine, you can reach out. ;)
Outro
In retrospect and in searching for the clip above I realized one thing - I had only seen the clip when he was already boiling - a peril of the instant gratification algorithmic gods of nowadays. And the irony is, that the entire clip is not even that much longer but it adds so much to it. To the passion and instant boiling of Joey Diaz!
Again and again, I love slowing down and writing these words in this newsletter and I hope you all keep enjoying reading this edge of mine, photography!
That’s it for this month.
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Copyright (C) 2025 Nuno Cruz. All rights reserved.
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