Edwina Hay, Photographer
💭 Thoughts on MoMA’s movie theater, well-designed camera gear, and Sprints’ debut album.
Thought Enthusiast is an AdHoc Project where we chat with fascinating thought leaders across various facets of music, tech, and culture whose work we admire, simply asking “what’s on your mind?” and “why do you care?” 💭
Edwina Hay is a freelance photographer from Brooklyn, NY. She specializes in live music, event photography, and portraits. She’s lived in New York City all her life and has a driver’s license but does not drive.
🎯 Current focus
Before I created images digitally, I shot a lot of old concerts on 35mm film. I’m working on finally gathering my old negatives and having them scanned. I did a batch last year and I hope to finish up the rest soon. Once they have been scanned, I’ll edit and publish them on my website. I’m excited to go through images I made when I first started covering live music in late 1998 and see how much I’ve grown as a photographer, and finally post those images online. I’ve been toying with the idea of making a zine of my photos for a while too.
🎶 Sprints’ debut album Letter To Self
I love discovering new artists and have been playing the debut album, Letter To Self by Sprints a lot lately and can’t wait to see them perform in March. They are doing two shows at Elsewhere Zone One. Thursday, March 21st has tickets available, Friday the 22nd is sold out (I'm going to Friday night since that show was announced first.)
🦾 “A place for everything and everything in its place.”
I’ve been spending time purging items I no longer need and organizing. Sometimes, a line I heard in “The Jetsons” as a kid becomes my train of thought. In the “Rip Off Rosie” episode Rosie the Robot malfunctions and says over and over, “a place for everything and everything in its place.” I’ve been using pouches a lot lately to keep my must-have accessories like earplugs, extra batteries and memory cards, lens wipes, and other items easy to find when I’m out shooting.
😌 Importance of rest & backing up your images
I don’t have many events scheduled this or next month, so I’m really looking forward to…resting! The colder weather makes me want to stay indoors, so I’m trying to take things easy and catch up on tasks I need to do like archiving and backing up images. Plus, I also get the opportunity to catch up on movies and TV shows that I haven’t watched yet before my schedule gets busy again.
📽️ MoMA’s movie theater
I’ve been seeing movies in a theater frequently over the past few months and that’s now my favorite way to watch them. When I go to the theater, I have to put my phone away and give my complete attention to what’s happening on screen. At home, I tend to get distracted, so I really love going to a theater and watching a film this way.
I'm a member of the Museum of Modern Art so I'm at their theater the most. The end of the year, they have their ”The Contenders” series where I catch up on a lot of films that tend to get nominated for awards. They also have other great film programming throughout the year, which allows me to see a variety of films and take full advantage of my membership.
👟 Comfort > style
If I know I’m going to be on my feet for an extended period of time, wearing comfortable shoes is an absolute must. I lean towards footwear that offers comfort and support over something more stylish. If I know I’m going to walk and stand a lot, I’ll throw on a compression sock too.
📷 Well-designed camera gear
I have been paying attention to the products that Peak Design releases and acquiring a few of them. I started with two of their camera straps for my film cameras, and then I picked up their travel tripod, and I plan to use one of their camera bags when I’m out shooting with one camera body instead of using my backpack.
I like their products as they're designed well. Their camera straps have an anchoring system that locks the strap to your camera. Whenever I have to attach a camera strap, I'm always concerned that it will get untied somehow since I usually have to tie a knot at the end of the strap to a piece of metal on the camera body. There's a satisfying *snap* sound when the camera strap anchor is locked into place, and I know the camera is secured. The tripod that I've used from PD is light and smaller in size than my previous tripod, so it's easy for me to throw in my tote bag when I think I'll need to use it on a shoot.