Hailing from Iowa, America’s Heartland, Jordan Gale remembers coming to a turning point. “Once I had the thought, ‘Okay, I’m a photographer,’ moving to New York seemed like the next step. For a few years, I toyed with that move, but was always too scared to pull the trigger.”
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After spending 2019 on the U.S. Presidential campaign trail, Gale decided it was time. “I put everything I owned into my car and drove 16 hours east to my friend’s apartment in Brooklyn,” he says. “I had an ear-to-ear grin as I was stuck in traffic going through the Holland Tunnel. It was exhilarating and I was proud of myself. It was one of the few life decisions I’ve felt confident about making.”
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Gale arrived in February 2020 – just weeks before New York became the global epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic. “At the beginning, there weren’t many visible signs of the crisis yet,” he remembers. “I would drive through midtown and be in awe of the empty streets. You wouldn’t see a single person.”
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