Looking the part

Rehearsing The Bridge Photographer: Katja Vaghi

Acting confidently and courteously allows you to get away with more or less everything.
I have been away for the past week, in New York to be precise. I first attended a conference at the lovely Siena College in Albany. It was a gathering of people whose work has been informed or inspired by the theory of Bulgarian-French literary critic, psychoanalyst and novelist Julia Kristeva.
Then I had a day and a half  in NYC and am getting ready to fly back home tonight. While in NYC I arranged two photoshoots . The one I did yesterday was quite eventful.
I teamed up with Romanian artist and photographer Ama Saru. She came to pick me up at Penn where my train from Albany arrived. We sat in Starbucks planning the shoot - she had a couple of dresses she wanted me to wear, I had brought some stuff too and had a heavy suitcase. Ama had two cameras, including a heavy MF Pentax. 'Lets go to the Met' she said. 'I have done shoots there before, the light is just perfect on a sunny day like this" It was a great sunny afternoon. So off we went and of course we could not find a single cab that would take us, so we had to carry our heavy bags on the subway and then a bus.

We got to the Met and we were flatly told we could not get in as checked luggage is not allowed. Oh my God, what shall we do? We went to Central Park and sat despondently on a bench. I was going to stay in Brooklyn but could not get there before evening, and I could not leave my precious suitcase unattended.
Then I had this idea. "Lets go to the nearest hotel, it's worth asking if they can look after my case" "There's only the Carlyle" said Ama. Oh, the Carlyle. Look it up. It is definitely well beyond my means.
At that point there was little choice. "Let's try". I took a deep breath in and went up to the concierge. "I am leaving New York tonight" I said "and I desperately want to see the Met. No cases are allowed in  the museum, can I please leave my suitcase here?". "Of course Madam" came the reply. He clearly thought I was a resident of the hotel, just checked out. He took my case and my heavy coat and handed me a tag. It was that easy.
So we got back to the Met. I changed in one of the restrooms, did my own make up and wore the beautiful jewellery Ama had brought. We did the shoot and noone bothered with us, some people stopped and watched but we were not asked to leave at any point.

At the end of the shoot we went back to the Carlyle. I took my bag and tipped the man that brought it to me, as one would normally do,  then I said, loudly enough to be heard, to Ama "I dont really want to wear this outfit, let me change into something more practical. Let's go to the restroom by the coffee shop then we can have coffee there before leaving". So we did . Noone stopped us, it all seemed so perfectly normal.
Later when we were out and having coffee and cake at another cafe, where we were not going to be charged a hundred dollar per cup or similar, we laughed at the whole episode.
Was it luck? A bit of luck was involved, definitely. But most of all we both acted naturally and effortlessly and I think this is what helped us to get away with it.
So next time I am in NYC I will definitely go and stay at the Carlyle. I just have to find a sponsor.

(Photos modelled by Alex B)