Cool Brooklyn Artist Alert: Eric Medsker

Eric Medsker is a photographer who lives in Prospect Heights. When he's not running around working on badass assignments, he's biking around Brooklyn on a sick bike whose name I do not know (but it's bright orange, and I dig it). I recently sat down emailed back and forth with Eric to chat about his shooting habits, a new book and his own Fucked in Park Slope moment (hint: it's eerily similar to one that FiPS writer and snack guru Parowpyro recently wrote about).

FiPS: Can you remember the specific moment when you discovered your passion for photography?

EM: I was young and frustrated with getting my hands to do what was in my head, probably around the age of fifteen or so.  My father had an old nikkormat laying around so I persuaded him to drive us to Philly to pick up some black and white film.  He let me run around the city shooting whatever I wanted that afternoon, and I think that was when the "world" kind of wedged it's foot into my mind.  From then on all I wanted was to get out of my hometown, which happened three years later when I moved to NYC.

FiPS:  Ever shoot candidly around Park Slope? If so, what have you noticed about this neighborhood from behind the lens?

EM: While most everyone gets their start wielding the camera at hip, myself included, I no longer shoot that way.  I'm really calculated, needing time and access to the subjects I'm interested in.  But I do shoot the everyday with my phone, and I guess what you'd notice most about park slope is it's affluence.  But I'd probably just hang out at the new butcher shop photographing the red and white beauties.

FiPS: I'm really excited for the Trades book. How did you come up with the idea, and what kind of 19th and early 20th century jobs are people still performing in NYC? (here I imagine Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown in Back to the Future Part III as a panty-dropping blacksmith). 

The whole thing got started with a tailor. I approached him because I thought he was incredible looking.  He's super tall, dark complexion with long grey dreaded hair who works in a small space surrounded by fabric and machinery.  After that shoot felt successful, I spent some time thinking about where it could go.  And broadening the scope and vision from the tailor to all trades worked visually and thematically. People still do all types of niche trades in NYC some of the more odd ones are ice sculpting, grave stone engraving, or water tank building.  But there's also the trades that used to have full city blocks devoted to their industry like glove making and millinery, but now there's only one or two left.  Young people are moving back into some trades, baking and butchering are examples of that.

FiPS: I hear that you're into bouldering. What advice can you give to someone visiting Brooklyn Boulder for the first time? Any useful tips?

I've only recently gotten into the bouldering habit, so I won't give any technical tips.  But in terms of etiquette try not to knock over a whole rack of bikes and look before you jump (you don't want to be the guy who pancaked some unsuspecting little kid.)

FiPS: Have you ever been fucked in Park Slope? If so, what the hell happened?

Yes.  My face was on the receiving end of a crazy guys fist on 5th avenue and 13th street at like noon on a sunday about five years ago.  A friend and I were walking home from a diner and as we were going through the intersection, he clocked me on the left side of my face sending my sunglasses to the street.  The faint murmur of "Oh, my…" by bystanders was drowned out by the man screaming insults with his fists up apparently ready for my retaliation (which he did not get.)  Getting into fist fights with crazy men on the street isn't really a good idea, especially when they look like a drawing from Super Jail.

Check out more of Eric's work HERE.