Worth Avenue: Palm Beach

Across the bridge from where I live in West Palm Beach is a place locals refer to as “The Island”, namely Palm Beach Florida. It is a special place with no room for the “hoy paloy” —and money—lots of it—in fact shitloads of it is your only ticket to living there. Its main shopping street is called Worth Avenue and it is comparable to Rodeo Drive in LA, meaning a few blocks of very exclusive shops mostly catering to jewellery stores , women’s fashions and art gallery’s specializing in the most horrendous dreck.  Mostly it is the tourists who stroll the streets gaping in at the windows as they walk in gangs of four or more (don’t couples ever take vacations alone?) commenting on the windows laced with exquisite merchandise and tried to look as if they fit in—which they do not.

Because it is the real “Palm Beachers” who have a style of dressing which is unsurpassed in this great land. For the men it is simple. Straw hats, loafers without socks, white shirt and tie, blue blazer, short pants and always carrying the most tiny of shopping bags—just big enough to hold a necktie. The women are almost always dressed in white, with big diamond rings, fat necklaces all made up to the max and dogs—they always have dogs.

As I walked past this woman, I said “Nice dogs” and a conversation began which ended in me asking her to take her photo with her special ones. She asked me to send her the photo which In said I would. My usual “motus operendi” is to give them a business card with my email address on it, ask them to send me an email and then I would send their jpeg’s. This ensures that they are serious about their photos and not wasting my time. So far she has not contacted me. Our paths will cross again.

Worth Avenue is my latest project is and I am slowly amassing what the holy powers in the art world refer to as, “a body of work”. It is an interesting process because what I am discovering is, that most of my subjects are quite nice, relaxed and friendly and have no problems with having their pictures taken—even if they are from another planet.