On Power, Proximity, and the Photographer Who Took Too Much
I was in my senior year, studying photography at Parsons School of Design in New York City. The city buzzed with endless possibilities, yet I felt like an outsider in a world I was only beginning to understand. Being a student was a shield, It was easier to say I was still “studying,” figuring things out, than to face the reality that I was not ready, and felt like a fraud in the career path I had chosen. The gap between where I was and where I wanted to be felt wider every day. I needed something, anything, to make it feel less terrifying, less uncertain. And then, just as I was starting to feel swallowed by all the doubt, a message popped up on my Raya profile. Simple and Direct.
CAMERON
-“We should grab a drink when we’re both back in New York.”
It wasn’t a question so much as a statement, the kind of thing that implied I should be grateful to be asked.
And upon looking at his profile, I was. At first.
At 34, Cameron was a successful photojournalist with a career that seemed carved out of opportunity. He had traveled the world, worked with major publications, and built a name for himself in the industry.
Our first date was dinner at a Thai street food restaurant that he choose where he ordered us plum wine and an assortment of dishes. The place was cozy in that chaotic, tucked-away way adorned with miss-matched chairs, graffiti, and music loud enough to drown out any awkwardness but still intimate enough that I couldn’t escape the feeling that he was in control of the night.
Part of me wanted to get to know him outside of the career I was so fixated on, wanted to connect with him as just two people. We talked about everything except what mattered most to me, and that discomfort only grew, though I tried to ignore it. It was as if the conversation about our personal lives was a way to avoid the inevitable, a way to keep the weight of the power dynamic at bay for just a little longer. As awkward as it was, part of me still wanted to get to know him without the shadow of his successes hanging over us. But, in a more complicated way, I had also agreed to meet with him because I was curious and I wanted to understand how someone like him had made it in the very field I was fumbling through.
Dinner ended, and I suggested we head to one of my favorite jazz bars nearby—a place where the music flows freely untamed. Free jazz, with its improvisation and fluidity, always felt like a reflection of how I navigated the world, constantly adjusting and responding to the rhythms that take power. The musicians were always close to the edge of something unpredictable, yet still in control. In a dance of tension and release. As we walked toward the bar, the conversation finally shifted to what I was studying and my career. His calm, almost detached manner revealed the subtle power play in our interaction—he had been waiting for this moment all night.
The questions became sharper, more pointed, like he was measuring me, evaluating my potential in his world. As we sat at the bar, Cameron pointed to a trumpet painted on the wall, its brass horn stretching toward someone’s head at the end of the counter. "That," he said, "is composition." His voice was, confident, like a lecturer. He went on to tell me that he saw the world hyper-visually—as if everything around him was more vivid, more photographic, like he could capture the essence of a moment with just a glance. He insisted he had honed his ability to see details most people missed, turning the world into a series of frames. It wasn’t just a casual remark; it felt like he was elevating himself, claiming a kind of vision that set him apart from the rest. His words were thick with the weight of someone who had spent years cultivating this sense of control over how he saw the world—and how he wanted others to see him. It wasn’t just about photography for him; it was about ownership, about having the rare gift to not just observe the world but possess it, frame by frame.
I convinced myself this was just the way photojournalists were—bold, self-assured, unyielding. We then slipped into this easy rhythm and I followed him into his world. When he pulled me in—bought me drinks, lent me cameras, called me his apprentice, it felt like stepping into something important.
That’s the thing about proximity to power. It makes you feel powerful, too.
At first, it was just the casual chats over homemade meals and bonfires in his back porch— we talked about art, philosophy and chaos. That’s how it started. Me listening as he went on about Magnum Photographers, National Geographic, Stephan Shore. He had stories, always. About sneaking past police lines, calling me after dinners at the white house, nights in Berlin that ended at sunrise.
It didn’t take long to realize that Cameron didn’t just collect stories—he collected people, too. and he used photography as an art form not for understanding the people he pointed his camera at but rather for dissecting them. The camera was a tool that distanced himself from his subjects, always placing them in ambiguous positions, arranged not to understand them, but to create compositions that serve his own visual pleasure. This same approach bled into his personal life. He didn’t see people as individuals, as partners, as friends—he saw them as pieces to place in his world, And looking back I was no different.
Cameron’s life, it turned out, was built around this very control. He kept two apartments—one in Greenpoint, tucked next to a trendy, prix-fixe restaurant that catered to the city’s newest wave of influencer nepo babies. The other was in the Upper West Side, classic, solid, established. Both spaces felt curated, perfectly suited to the image he wanted to project: one foot in the world of high-end, cutting-edge art and food, and the other in the more traditional, status-driven world of old money. They were choices that mirrored the way he moved through life—constantly balancing the act of being accessible yet untouchable, intimate yet distant. In both spaces, he maintained control of his narrative, presenting himself not as the man who could have it all- but did.
But it wasn’t just spaces he curated—it was the people around him, Cool people, interesting people, people on the edges of society the kind who had been everywhere and done everything, who spoke in half-finished stories and never explained the endings, slipping in and out of parties, gallery openings, and underground clubs. If you weren’t in on it, you weren’t in. And Cameron gravitated toward them. Manhattan, he told me once, was a graveyard for people without taste. The real city—the one that mattered—existed after hours, in warehouse parties in Ridgewood, doing ketamine in back rooms, He said I wouldn’t understand until I stayed out all night, until I let go a little, until I saw the city the way it was meant to be seen.
And I wanted to understand. But deep down couldn’t shake my distaste in his highfalutin prophecies, and the way he spoke them with such certainty, as if not falling into his version of the world meant forfeiting any path that attributed success.
So I played the part. telling myself it was an experiment in experience, about learning, about stepping into something new. I started assisting him on assignments, a shadow trailing behind him, carrying gear. He told me I could bounce ideas off him, that it was in my best interest to confide in him.
What I took from him at that time was that you had to be hardcore, radical in some way when it came to attacking a career in the arts. That to be great, you had to push beyond boundaries, challenge the limits of what was acceptable, throw yourself into the fire and come out the other side with the kind of stories that made people lean in when you talked, an almost perverse need to be closer to the edge than anyone else.
But when I told him I wanted to do a project about documenting my many online first dates a cultural critique on intimacy in the algorithmic age, on the disposable nature of modern romance, suddenly, it was dangerous. Distasteful. Not the right kind of risk. Not the kind of story that was worth telling. He dismissed it unbothered by how it might land. It was too frivolous, too small, too much about the wrong kind of intimacy. He saw risk as something external, something you threw yourself into, not something you invited into your own life. His version of danger was sanctioned, respectable, something that could be packaged into a feature or a photo essay that would impress the right people. Mine was something else entirely—something he couldn’t control, something that didn’t fit into the image of what he thought serious work looked like.
“DON’T WRITE ABOUT ME” he snapped.
It took me longer than it should have to realize that men like Cameron don’t invite you in because they see your potential. They invite you in because they see what they can take.
When he practically begged me to share my ideas- I did- about anything and everything, I thought it was a chance to get critique, not a way to be possessed, especially by someone I thought cared for me. “We are going to be best friends forever,” he had said, making me believe that this wasn’t just about photography or projects. He had lured me in with the notion that I could lean on him, learn from him. but it was never about friendship. What I didn’t realize was the second I shared my ideas with him, I wasn’t opening up for critique—I was handing over a piece of myself, and he was waiting for the moment to claim them as his. What I had seen as an opportunity for growth, he saw as a chance to own me. It wasn’t just about photography anymore. It wasn’t just about art. It was about the way he used me. The way he used everyone around him.
But as soon as I shared those ideas with him, he didn’t treat them like something worth me developing or nurturing. He didn’t see them as work that could stand on its own. Instead, he took them, re-packaged them, and pitched them as his own unbeknownst to me. His career had plateaued, and he needed something to reignite it. and that’s where I came in. He needed my insights, my creative energy, my willingness to work as an assistant. But he couldn’t just ask for help. No, he had to make me believe that it was a collaboration, He didn’t just steal the idea—I had given it to him. I had trusted him to guide me, and instead, he took what was mine, made it his, and acted like I never existed in the process.
Men like Cameron are masters of proximity—they know just how to pull you in close enough to make you feel like you're part of their world, but never so close that you can truly see who they are. They create an illusion of connection, a performance of intimacy, all while keeping the reins firmly in their hands. They understand that power doesn’t always have to be loud or forceful; sometimes, it’s about subtlety, about positioning people just within their grasp.
They use proximity as a tool, not to build relationships, but to assert dominance. They surround themselves with people who, for a time, seem indispensable to their narrative. The closer you get to them, the more you begin to believe that your presence is meaningful, that your contributions are valued, when in reality, it’s all about maintaining a carefully constructed image. For men like Cameron, people are objects, useful until they’re not, then easily discarded when they no longer serve a purpose.
And when they’re done with you—when you’ve served your purpose or when your value diminishes in their eyes—they’ll take back everything they gave you. They’ll ask for it, not out of need, but out of a desire to remind you that nothing was ever truly yours to begin with. What they give can always be taken away. This is the essence of power: the ability to create an illusion of generosity, of intimacy. They understand that the closer you get, the more you’ll give, the more you’ll believe in the possibility of something real. But in the end, it's all a performance. Proximity is just another way to take.
When you try to confront them, when you call their behavior rude, when you call out the ways they’ve used you, they won’t own it. Instead, they’ll brush it off with a smooth warning: “You shouldn’t burn any bridges.” It’s a reminder that they are still in charge, that you are still a piece in their game. The message is clear: no matter what happens, don’t forget your place. Don’t step outside of their boundaries, because they will always be the one holding the power.
Even the Polaroid he had gifted me—the one that had once felt like a token of trust was now a piece of his carefully curated world. And when he asked for it back the day of my exhibition opening not a casual request. No, a demand, wrapped in the same cold detachment he had shown every time he had taken something from me. The camera, like everything else, had been a tool for him. Once it served its purpose, once I had given it the meaning he needed it to have, he wanted it back. It was a reminder: nothing had ever truly belonged to me, not the camera, not my ideas, and certainly not the friendship he had promised. Everything had been borrowed. And when it was time for him to reclaim what he felt was his, he did it without hesitation, without apology. The camera wasn’t a gift anymore. It was a symbol. A symbol that in his world, nothing was ever truly yours. Not even the things you thought you owned.
And in that moment, you realize—the proximity they’ve offered was never about closeness, never about genuine connection. It was only about control. Only about taking.
As a photographer, especially a photojournalist, Cameron’s entire existence revolves around taking. They never stop taking, never stop shaping everything around them into a narrative that belongs solely to them, all while hiding behind the mask of the observer—the one who is “just capturing the truth,” even as they rewrite it.