what inspires you?
AIR PLAY
Allen Ying, Communication Design ’04, Photography ’03 Squint a little: Yes, come to think of it, Robert Cronbach’s 1976 bronze sculpture, Eye of Fashion, does resemble a halfpipe. We advise you not to use FIT’s beloved icon that way, but there was a moment in 2004 when someone did. Allen Ying was there to capture it. “The story with the photo, just the usual,” Ying says. “I met these guys through some other skaters. We were going skating with the goal of getting tricks, footage, and photos, and he saw the sculpture and wanted to try to skate it.” There’s a delicious tension between the airborne performer’s ecstasy and the security guard who’s about to end it. A photographer who specializes in skaters, Ying founded the late, lamented publication 43 (2011–16) “to push the paradigm of what a skateboard magazine is.” These days he often shoots music acts, publishing on Wait Okay, an ad-free communal blog that he organizes, and Alt Citizen, the online magazine for New York’s Alt Space gallery. Whether they show skaters, musicians, or people hanging out, Ying’s images are transporting. No matter where you see them, when you see them, you’re there. Eye of Fashion is on the corner of West 27th Street and Seventh Avenue.
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