Kiely Groenewegen // New York City, NY

When I first suggested this location - Bethesda Terrace in Central Park - Kiely rightly rolled her eyes: “that place has been overdone. Everybody shoots there.” I knew that, though that wasn’t necessarily the reason why I wanted to shoot there.

This was the location of one of my favorite movie scenes, where John Wick walks down the stairs to meet Winston at the end of John Wick 2.

Kiely kindly obliged me, after I promised I wouldn’t shoot at the actual fountain area. I just wanted to experience the park, breathe in the flowers, the city air - and urine smell. There is no place in the world like NYC, and Central Park is as New York-y as you can get.

After I had Kiely stand up, a fortunate stroke of serendipity smiled upon me, and without even planning, a dog escaped its owner, and started running down the stairs - à la John’s dog - and I yelled out for Kiely to freeze, waiting till the last second when the dog would juxtapose the killer Australian ballerina, without stealing too much of the show.

You can’t plan perfect, oftentimes; but you can definitely set yourself up for perfect moments like this.

*Unbeknownst to me when I scheduled this blog to post today, is that September 10 - the day of this posting - just happens to be Kiely’s birthday! Happy birthday!

November 1, 2020