Laura gave me my first paid gig as a freelance photographer. She reached out to me to come with her to photograph people attending the opening of the new Nieman Marcus store in Bellevue, Washington. There is also a small chance I was already shooting e-com for Jill Wenger at Totokaelo, but for the sake of this story let’s say I wasn’t. I don’t want to go digging through old invoices to fact-check, and in a perfect world, I’ll photograph Jill one day as well for Context, and can tell that story then.

Anywhooo…. Laura Cassidy. I think Laura put me on the map. Keep in mind, at the time Laura put me on this map, we still had to print out MapQuest directions before going to run errands, so the map then was not what the map is now, but Laura absolutely validated what I was doing at the time. I just did a Google to find the article that Laura wrote about me a million years ago and came across another of her articles (using my images) titled “Why I Don’t Think Seattle is Fashionable” from November of 2014.

I’ve now found the article she wrote which was published on 13 December 2010 for Seattle Met Magazine titled “Street Scene”. In the article I sound like a pretentious idiot (maybe I still do, and I’m listed as a “blogger”. Ugh. In the associated image, by Ryan McVay, I’m wearing head-to-toe Rick Owens with an Ann Demeulemeester necklace, or two, and look…well I look like it’s December of 2010. Here’s the URL if you want a laugh:

https://www.seattlemet.com/style-and-shopping/2010/12/photographer-adam-sinding-0111

“Why I don’t think Seattle is fashionable” could have been the motto for my move to New York City. If you were to go to the Emerald City now, the article would hold much less weight, but back in my time, fashion was just not making it over the Cascades and down to the Salish Sea. There was a Barney’s (RIP) but it was empty. Nordstrom Rack was filled with runway Céline and Bottega which would never sell at retail in at the Flagship but would fly off similar racks in New York and LA. Totokaelo and Blackbird were niche little shops which were only for cognoscenti and were very very (perhaps too) ahead of their time.

Laura was one of very few people who “got it.” I’m sure I sound like a pretentious idiot, an elitist, but back in the day when I really “cared”, it was people like Laura whom I got very excited about. People like Laura ignited the spark which sparked the flame in the engine that drove me to be (figuratively) here. Hell, Laura took me to a Chanel event and introduced me to André Leon Talley. Yes there are photos. It does not get more real that that, I assure you.

Here is the URL to that. I forgot that had even happened!

https://www.seattlemet.com/style-and-shopping/2010/06/slide-show-andre-and-the-giants-of-fashion

Last year when I started this Context project, I knew that Laura and Karl needed to be the foundation for it all. Laura was the first person I photographed for Context, and the person whom after I sorted through the photos, helped to form in my head the trajectory for this whole thing. It needed more than just one meeting. It needed depth. I needed to go into peoples’ homes. I needed to sit and discuss life with them. Thusly these photos are separated by five months, as I don’t get to be back in the Northwest as much as I’d like. July in Georgetown and December in Normandy Park.

Hanging out in her Normandy Park home, we chat about the good ol’ days. How burn outs happen. About what is important in life (hint: this did not include fashion). We witness a shadow cast by a low winter sun which creates a shadow and then the inverse of a shadow behind the shadow (pictured). Laura works with grief and death as part of her repertoire, and I realize now that two of these photos have a skylight above her. A portal to the heavens. I’m not religious and these images are purely serendipitous.

On 6 July I wrote to Laura:

“So I dunno if you saw my Instagram video but I am re-starting what I do. Taking it back to the original way I shot…real people…and I thought…you could be my first one…But I thought it could be pretty appropriate considering our story.”

Laura replied:

“Flattered. I mean, I love our story & how it’s unfolded. I mean shout out to us at some Neiman Marcus party that neither of us would go near today.”

Shout out to us! Thanks for everything, Laura.