I’m on a CitiBike heading over the Williamsburg Bridge. It’s the 22nd Anniversary of the largest loss of American life by intentional cause on American soil since Pearl Harbor. I’m dipping down streets in neighborhoods of Brooklyn I’m not familiar with. Passing brownstones, parks, churches, bodegas. Each one new to me, but not unfamiliar. New York is massive, and Brooklyn is big enough to easily get lost in. I lived nearby in Williamsburg for a few years but realize that I never really got to know the Burrough as well as I’d have wished.

I’m on my way to meet Nikki Ogunnaike. Well, in fact, I met Nikki a long time ago in the lobby of a hotel in Sydney’s Wooloomooloo suburb. Both of us had arrived at the crack of dawn and neither could check into our hotel rooms due to the early hour. I decided to fight the jetlag with a run on the New South Welsh (yes this is the correct demonym and I love it) waterfront, and Nikki tells me she’s a runner as well. We make penciled in plans to run together, but it never comes to fruition. And now, on my way to her apartment I start to get nervous.

Mind you, Nikki is one of the first people I put on my list to photograph for Context. With her new appointment as Editor-in-Chief of Marie Claire USA, I thought that it would be very interesting to get to know her a bit better and to document her in her early days in the role. But as I near her front door I have an “Oh shit” moment where I think to myself “how am I going to write a personal story about this person whom I have not yet gotten to know?”

I text her to say I’m here and she tells me she’s running late. Phew. Buys me some time. I head to the café around the corner, pass a fire station setting up for a memorial service, grab a coffee, and head back to Nikki’s. She invites me inside her place. I’m sweating from the heat, the CitiBike, and my nerves. And just as I pass through the threshold, I realize that this is it. This is where the story grows. I don’t need to know Nikki that well prior to this moment. The story can be the lack of a story and me being in her apartment signals the lack of the lack of a story is arriving. As we talk in her living room, we are writing our story. It’s this exact moment that Context clicks for me: the intersection of two lives is where the story starts.

To be fair, I do not recall too much of what we discussed. I know we discussed her boyfriend being an avid cyclist. Her “EIC” mug. Prejudice and representation. Fashion in general (for better or worse). The details don’t really matter, in my opinion. The fact that this person had invited me into their home after getting a likely quite vague request from me to photograph her for a not-yet-realized project is what matters. We talked. We vibed. We connected. We departed. It was just another day of New York Fashion Week, anyhow.

Over the course of the month, I met up with Nikki in Milan and Paris to supplement the photos from her Brooklyn home. In Milan we were photobombed in Bar Luce by Wes Anderson. In Paris, Nikki saved me from leaving my bike unlocked the morning after I had somehow got it back after being stolen.

Tomorrow, Marie Claire USA will release the first top to bottom issue with Nikki at the helm. This is a major accomplishment and I want to be the first to congratulate her on this achievement. I also want to say “thank you” for allowing me to see into a bit of your life in these days leading up to this. Thank you for helping me to find some meaning and purpose in this new chapter of my life as you unfold your own.

Thanks, Nikki.