This is why I love my camera. It is never wrong. It captures facts and stores them. This frees me to live in the moment and move on to the next with the knowledge that the first is preserved. Since coming to New York, I’ve documented snowstorms and floods. I’ve taken pictures of strangers and friends, the streets where I walk, the markets where I shop. I even photographed my way through childbirth—well, until the very end, when my doctor banished my Nikon from the birthing bed. And recording my daughter’s life? I have thousands of photos of Joy. On the first day of school each year, we look back at what she wore on the first day of school the year before and the year before that. Inevitably we’ve forgotten. But there it is in vivid detail.

That isn’t to say detail can’t be fudged. I do this every day, photographing real estate in a way that shows a home to potential buyers as something bigger, brighter, more alluring. Angles, lenses, creative lighting—these are the stock of my trade. Deceptive, perhaps. But much of marketing is.

Right now, though, after spending my working day photographing a Tribeca condo from every imaginable angle in the shifting city light, I’m playing at home. It’s just past nine at night. The skyline isn’t fully dark, not this close to the longest day of the year, but the air is heavy and moist, as early June in New York can be, turning what might have been a purple sunset into elongated smudges of gray. Fog is on the move, enfolding my building like a hug from behind, before slipping on past. As I watch, it blankets the Hudson and mists around Fort Lee on the far bank, before drifting north to the George Washington Bridge like just another commuter heading home.

My condo is on the fortieth floor overlooking Riverside Drive. I paid more for it than I should have, but a river view was a must. I’ve always needed open space, not a lot, just enough. As long as I have that, I can breathe.

Swiveling the head of my tripod lower, I focus on the steady stream of traffic, which grows more vibrant with the deepening dusk. I’ve taken this same shot hundreds of times—maybe thousands—but it’s never the same twice. Like the tide leaving ripples on sand, I think as I wait, remote in hand, for the right second.