Erica Reade is originally from Montreal Canada, and she has been in NYC for 13 years now. Her background is in International Affairs and human rights, and she is now a full-time photographer. Erica is the Founding Director of the NYC photography collective Camera of the Month Club, an artist member of SohoPhoto Gallery, and a Nikon Scholarship winner at the Santa Fe Scholarship Workshops. She is also a beach bum and an instant film lover. Erica is fascinated by the juxtaposition of beach culture and landscape along NY’s coastlines in the midst of NYC’s urban chaos. She has been working on her series Beach Lovers since 2015, a documentation of couples, intimacy, and summer in NYC. Erica is about to embark on her fifth summer of photographing couples, and she is in the midst of refining the series to create a photo book, with the intention of releasing it in 2020.
Beach Lovers
Summer is my favorite season, and I spend a lot of time observing NYC beach-goers; their bodies swaying in the waves or splayed out half-asleep on sandy towels. There is something about being on the beach that emboldens couples to enjoy more affectionate freedom, their inhibitions less hidden than anywhere else I’ve observed in the city. We are raw and exposed on the beach, stripped of our clothes, our makeup, and in some ways, our status markers. My involvement with my couples is one of an observer, recorder and sometimes, voyeur. Beach Lovers is a collection of intimate moments shared by couples I’ve observed at the beaches of NYC, with a focus on Rockaway, Fort Tilden, and Coney Island. This series is about the small moments of tenderness between couples, whether sharing a wet embrace, long laughs, or a lazy limb-entwined nap on a beach blanket.
To view more of Erica Reade’s work please visit her website.