August 01, 2014

#StreetMeetNY Featuring Van Styles & 13th Witness

Recently, The Hundreds hosted #StreetMeetNY with streetwear photography kings Van Styles and 13th Witness. Superego's art director & Harlem's own Marz and the homie MuffinMilk were there amongst an army of photographers. Literally, over one hundred (pun intended on The Hundreds) photographers showed up in response to the online flyer posted. A range of cameras took center stage, ranging from iPhones to Leicas to DSLRs to film to polaroids, anything you could name was brought to this photography orgy.

Being that this was the first event of its kind in New York, nobody really knew what to expect. Maybe it was gonna be a bunch of hypebeasts just dickriding Van & 13th, or maybe just a mob of mixtape rappers who wanted to get attention, but in reality, it was a cross-generational gathering of people who just wanted to shoot flicks. Legit, cross-generational with small kids to somebody's parents, and even a few dogs attended. 

The event kicked off in front The Hundreds' SoHo storefront where the mob watched Van Styles lay out the blueprint of how everything was gonna go down, and then followed up with instructions to gather for a class photo. And that's what it felt like, a class trip, like we were enrolled the School of Hard Knocks and Van Styles was co-teaching with 13th Witness.

 

We moved though the streets of Broadway, blocking traffic and listening to the symphony of horns honking for us to get the fuck out of the way, but the masters wouldn't budge until they captured the perfect portraits of their students. We continued through into the crowded streets of Chinatown, where confused tourists stopped to ask us if we were following someone famous, to which we ingeniously replied "Yeah, a pornstar, and we're all taking turns with her" as their eyes lit up.

We crept through the projects of the Lower East Side, making our way down to the South Street Seaport where we took a breather under the Brooklyn Bridge. Van Styles and 13th Witness both took center stage as they each gave words of photography wisdom to the next generation. In all respects, they are both very humble and grateful for the position they're blessed to be in, and are open to any sort of interaction with their fans, to the point where it's like they've been friends with everyone who came out. No hesitation to take selfies with people, no hesitation to answer questions, and no hesitation to give away that Hundreds gear they were wearing (Legit, one kid asked to have Van's glasses). None of that celebrity "I'm too cool for you" bullshit.

The group ended the day in the midsection of the Brooklyn Bridge where we made friends with a beverage vendor who pulled out a wad of cash to front for the cameras, and where we almost had two run-ins with our favorite members of the NYPD. Despite the heat and humidity of the day, the #StreetMeetNY crew soldiered through the concrete jungle behind our generals to capture it's wilderness and inhabitants. Shout out to all the homies we kicked it with, hope to work with you soon!