Interview: How a photographer captured the romanticism of NYC's beaches

Like clockwork, New Yorkers flock to the local beaches every weekend in the summer for some much-needed respite from the humid urban temperatures. A new book by photographer Erica Reade pays homage to the grittiness and romanticism of New York City’s unique beach culture.

After more than a decade of juggling a nonprofit career working in the human rights field with freelance photo work, Reade decided to quit her day job in 2018 and become a full-time photographer.

"It was a mix of burnout and disillusionment from the field, and then really wanting to give all my attention to growing this photography career," said Reade, who is also a founding director of NYC photography collective Camera of the Month Club. "It definitely felt like a bit of a leap to do something so different. That is the winding road I took to land where I am today."

This month, that road has led to Reade releasing her first book. Beach Lovers is the culmination of a seven-year project in which Reade traveled to NYC's various beaches — particularly the Rockaways, Fort Tilden and Coney Island — to document the intimacy of couples there and capture some of the romanticism of NYC in the summertime.

Reade, who is originally from Montreal, moved to New York more than 15 years ago. The city’s beaches became her muse, even before she understood what this project was going to become.

"I spent a lot of time at the beach in my free time, whenever I had a moment," she said. "It was evenings and weekends at first, but as soon as I had a day off, I would go to the beach to take more photos."

She quickly observed that people tended to be surprisingly unguarded despite being in public: "It was almost like people forgot other people were around."

Spontaneity and joy radiates from the 65 black-and-white photos found in the book, which show people lounging, kissing, embracing and playing. The flickers of authentic connection couldn't be more timely either, with the book coming after two years of a pandemic which separated people from each other and from most communal experiences.

Gothamist spoke to Reade about the origins for the project, the ethics of street photography, the vibes of each NYC beach, and what the city could do to improve the beaches for the public.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Were you going to the beaches specifically to take photos for this series? I'd always been a big beachgoer in New York. As I was dedicating more and more of my time to photography, I made it a point to always have a camera with me. But for a number of years, my work wasn't very good. I just kept going back to see what I could make.

The series was more of a happy accident; I wasn't intending to go out and shoot couples. At the time, I was shooting on a film camera and developing photos and really liked what I saw. I picked that up and kept rolling with it, and it became a lot more intentional.

You were taking different kinds of photos of different subjects. Why were you drawn to the photos of couples in particular? I was really noticing the ways people interacted on the beaches was a little bit more free than anywhere else in the city. There was a real intimacy and a real beauty in the way people were interacting with each other on the beaches that is not quite the same at a city park or on the subway — [it's not] the way couples are in public. At the beach, it was almost like people forgot other people were around.

I've always been a bit of a romantic myself — I also shoot weddings — so I think I always have an eye for couples. And I had a lot of older New York street photographers in mind that really influenced me throughout the series, that had had these beautiful moments of couples at Coney Island and Brighton beaches.

I think everyday beach photography is fun, but there was just something a little bit more challenging about looking for all these different interactions. And I think people have this notion that New Yorkers are rushed, we're busy, and we're cynical. But there was just this real nice, soft tenderness happening at the beach that was really lovely to photograph.

Who are some of your favorite New York City photographers? Harvey Stein was one. Garry Winogrand was a big one for me, I loved his work so much. Diane Arbus. And currently, Donna Ferrato. She's done phenomenal work in New York over the last 30 years. And I know she's not really considered in the canon, but Vivian Maier did some amazing work of New York even though she [became] famous after her death. She's a huge influence for me, and she actually did some work at the beaches here and a lot of street photography in New York that just continues to blow me away.

The unguarded intimacy of your photos is what really stood out to me. How were you able to capture those moments? Largely, it was observation. The series went through a lot of phases. Earlier in the series, I would approach people or ask, and it would often either ruin the moment or they would freeze, or what I had seen didn't end up replicating itself. So I made the decision to photograph what I saw and keep moving. Or [I would] stake it out if I wasn't noticed, or they were so enrapt in each other that it wasn't really obvious that I was taking pictures.

Sometimes I would sit and watch, sometimes I was walking and looking for something. Other times, I'd look up and something was happening and I would sort of... it sounds creepy to say "follow a couple," but sometimes I would. If they were walking into the water together, I would sometimes go in with my camera. I do shoot landscape, so it wasn't only [people], but I was always looking for something I hadn't seen before.

I didn't really interact with many of the couples, it was largely an observational, documentary approach to this. And then I was trying to also be mindful of not having faces be too recognizable. I was thinking about, if that was me, would I be comfortable seeing my body like that? Because I realize it does cross [a line] for some people. Street photography has never had any consent in it for anyone as long as it's existed. So that was always at the back of my mind, and I think the final selection [of photos] was representative that I was doing this really out of love, and I never wanted anything to feel exploitative or anything like that. If I could sense people were noticing me or something was off, I wouldn't push it, I would keep moving. I never tried to do anything that would feel uncomfortable to anyone.

I'm always interested in how photographers balance the ethical implications of photographing people in public places. What were your rules about what kinds of photos you would or wouldn't include? Where were those lines for you? Definitely with an age thing — if they were teenagers, no faces. I have a few younger couples, and you can't see their faces in them. You shouldn't publish photos of people under 18 without consent. Some [other] images I wouldn't include because it felt like the eyes went to the genitals, and that's really not what the series was about. It was about intimacy. While I do have some photos in there that are a little more lustful, or people are really kind of embracing, I wanted people to walk away with a sense of the tenderness and nostalgia of summer here. And yeah, public intimacy, which is kind of an oxymoron.

There are probably some people who don't think I did an ethical thing. But I think I did it with as much respect as I could. And like I said, I always [kept in mind], if I were a stranger and I walked in a bookstore and I saw myself represented like that, would I be comfortable with the image? So I stand by all the photos that are now in the book, and I feel really good about them.

It's a tough question, because then you really shake up what street photography is. Whether it is a parade, or a news story, there's not much consent. But at the same time, it is a public place. And if you are doing a very public thing, we all have our phones out, I think we all have kind of given permission in a way to be at least observed by everyday people. I thought about whether something would feel exploitative or offensive and I never felt like the images would ever offend or upset or really hurt someone if they found themselves in there.

The three main beaches that you focused on were Rockaway Beach, Fort Tilden and Coney Island. Did you notice any differences between the type of interactions that you saw at the various beaches? And how would you sum up the vibe of each beach? Yeah, there's totally a different vibe at all the beaches, I think that's why people in New York tend to have their favorite ones. My personal favorite is actually Fort Tilden, because it's the most relaxed to me. I like that there's no buildings or amenities or restaurants. It's just sand dunes and the beach. So I would say the vibe there is more relaxed, the interactions were slower, maybe a little bit more intimate there.

Coney would probably be the craziest in terms of the people-watching, it's just nonstop there. There's always something happening, there's people dancing, there's no calm there. It's the most visually exciting and overwhelming. I would never go there to relax and go for a swim, but I go there to take photos of people and the colors and the vibrancy.

And then Rockaway has many pockets of vibes. It's got the surfer vibes, you've got the locals, the teenagers, the old Russians or the police and firefighter crews. I think I got photos of people from every different sort of walk of life. And in between those two [beaches] is Jacob Riis. I got a few photos there too, and it has the LGBTQ beach which has its own special vibe as well. It's a safe space and has much more of a party feeling there, it's very crowded and exciting. I think the interactions would depend on which tiny pocket of the beach I was on, with Tilden being the calmest and Coney being the most chaotic of them all.

This book is the culmination of a seven year project. Does it feel good to be done with it, to be moving forward? Or does it feel like you're losing something? And are you going to continue shooting at the beaches? It feels very exciting. A book is this real thing, and it's my first book. So that, in and of itself, is very exciting. And I think seeing it all laid out like this, I think I never really stopped and appreciated what I had done, and it's forced me to do that. It was a nice moment of self-reflection for myself, where I started with this series and where I am now.

I don't know that I'll ever be finished with it. I think it's something I'll always do. I think of Harvey Stein, and how he has like three books on Coney Island, at least. So I think shooting the beaches of New York is probably going to be a thing I do for as long as I'm here.

I hope whether people get the book or get a print, I hope if they come in contact with the series, they stop and look around a little differently now at the beaches, and just sort of watch the ways that we interact, and take a moment of appreciation. There was a point, early in 2020, where I was afraid I would not even get to the beach that whole summer and wouldn't be able to shoot. When I did, that made the photos even more meaningful to me. And ever since then, I've had a lot of people remark on that: I was at a book fair at The International Center of Photography recently, and I had a couple of people say like, this feels really necessary right now, because there was a moment where we weren't touching, we weren't seeing each other, we were so separate. So it felt like a good reminder of how important those little moments are.

As someone who has spent so much time at all these city beaches, is there anything you think the city could do to improve them, whether in a structural sense, in a way to make it more welcoming to more people, or something else? Oh, boy. In general, I think the city could do a lot. We could do so much more in terms of just waste and plastic. I'm picking up trash every time I'm at the beach. There's just a phenomenal amount of waste. So that could be a whole other article about waste in New York and how we need to catch up to other cities in keeping the beaches clean and addressing climate change.

I'm sure you've seen that part of the beaches at Rockaway are closed for the summer because they have to fill in the sand and the dunes and the disappearing shorelines. During Sandy, we saw there was just such a slow response to Rockaway, so I think sometimes Rockaway is given the short end of the stick, and I think the residents there are very sensitive about that, that services go out there last. And the businesses are really dependent on [visitors] from May to September, so there was much outcry about this. The announcement came out, and people went through the roof, because they wait all winter to open and welcome people to restaurants. So the city could pay a lot more attention to things like that.

The cleanliness is a big thing for me, environmental impacts — local restaurants having less plasticware so that people don't bring their food to the beach and then leave it everywhere. I know funding can be an issue, but it'd be nice on certain days if they extended lifeguard hours, because people tend to swim after six and there have been a lot of drownings. If they'd had lifeguards on Thursday, Friday, Saturday until 8 [p.m.] instead of 6 [p.m.], or something like that, that could maybe be avoided.

For New Yorkers who aren't big beach-goers, what is your pitch to them on why they should travel to one this summer? Oh, wow, that's so hard, because I've never understood people who don't like the beach. I would say I'm biased to Rockaway and Fort Tilden, so I would tell people the water is much cleaner than people would have you believe. When I tell people I do this series, they're like, "New York has beaches? It's okay to swim?" But it's surprisingly clean and wonderful. The water is wonderful, the waves are wonderful. There is incredible food and nightlife out at the Rockaways, as well. And it's just like this relaxed beach culture that you get to be a part of for three or four months. It's this fun mix of hearing the A train and seeing planes, and then the ocean is there and there's tacos. It's a very time-sensitive special time.

It's not California, it's not like a beach town in Jersey. It's very New York. And it can also feel very magical with the sunsets here, and frankly, it's always cooler than, like, Central Park. When I go to Manhattan in the summer, I'm like, "Oh, I understand why people hate summer here." But then you go to the beach and you can go for a swim and relax and you can get a frozen drink on the boardwalk. So I think my pitch is that you could do a little staycation at the beaches here.

As much as I just said that we need to improve the cleanliness, they're still a lot cleaner than I think people would believe, particularly out at the Rockaway peninsula. And you can swim pretty much from May to October — that's what I do. The water is great and you can learn to surf.

I could go on and on! I think the beaches are great here. I'm really grateful that you can go with the subway or a city bus. There's not many places in the world that you can take public transit and it spits you out on the ocean, and that's pretty special. So I would just say, give it a try. I think people end up liking it more than they think they would, because I've taken some very skeptical people, and they were always pleasantly surprised by the beaches.