David Gray’s monograph, Wait For It captures the city’s essence in frames both poetic and playful. A collection of street photography honed over years in New York City, the book frames Gray’s work as a transcendent form of the usual documentation of bustling urban life, finding harmony in contrasts: the intricate dance between light and shadow, the push and pull of intimacy and anonymity, and the way humans and architecture shape—and are shaped by—each other.

Gray’s lens is at once reverent and unflinching, evoking the pioneering color photography of Saul Leiter and William Eggleston while grounding his work firmly in the present. His compositions embrace negative space, scale, and the absurdities of city life, creating an experience both universal and distinctly New York. As the cityscape evolves, Gray’s images remain tethered to fleeting moments that speak to larger truths about identity, space, and connection.

Released by Grand Editions, a new imprint specializing in limited-edition runs of art books and forgotten classics, Wait For It doesn’t just document a city; it draws the viewer into its rhythms, reminding us of the beauty in chaos and the humor in mundanity. This is street photography for a hyper-documented age, daring us to pause—and wait for it.

Document sits down with Gray to discuss the many wonderful perspectives of New York City in his monograph.

Nick Vogelson: Your work feels imbued with the breathing life of the city; notably traces of former structures, hints of old signs, and lamp posts on end. In your practice, do you view the subject as the city or the people?

David Gray: I don’t see a distinction: the city molds the people, and is in turn given meaning by them. One without the other is redundant. Even the act of walking down the street is influenced by the surrounding architecture, and our sense of self as we navigate it.

Nick: You use negative space, often rich black negative space, to frame some of your images. Can you talk a little bit about negative space in relation to the space New York occupies in your images?

David: Negative space is what our brains instinctively add to cluttered scenes, to prevent them from being too much to process. Most of us see only what we need to, or want to, and the rest is processed out. In my own head I’m continually zooming in and then pulling back, looking for a moment where someone does something as a reaction to their surroundings. I would love to see an NYC street scene through the eyes of other people. Or perhaps I wouldn’t.

Nick: Your work often frames a striking difference of scale between elements. How does this relate to how you feel about the city?

David: We all struggle to define ourselves within such a vast canvas [as a city]. Mostly, we manage it by not seeing how small we are in relation to the city. Though I have a feeling many New Yorkers see the city as a painted backdrop to their everyday dramas. Eight million people all starring in their own TV show.

Nick: The inspiration from the foundational years of color photography is evident in the work, from Saul Leiter to Eggleston, and the ’70s color photography of Stephen Shore. Where do you see this evolving, both within and outside of the environment of a metropolis?

David: We live in an unprecedented time, when most people have in their cellphones, better cameras than the greatest photographers of times past could have dreamed of owning. It’s now nigh-impossible to shoot a city scene and not have the resulting picture include other people taking photos: usually of themselves. If we’re talking near-future, I see everyone’s lenses recording everything, all the time, to be later sorted by AI and made into all kinds of self-referential art. We are becoming an incredibly self(ie)-aware society, always looking for a chance to record ourselves reacting to our surroundings. You’ve made me suddenly very curious to see how people behave away from a city. I suspect they’re just as self-centered (and that’s not an insult: it’s what lets us gaze at the night stars and not weep).

“When someone sees you, you become part of the photograph, and therefore alter it, making it something it shouldn’t have been.”

Nick: Which images couldn’t be taken in any other city?

David: None: by which I mean that people strive to dominate their environment. The background would be different, and the cultural mores, but I bet I could capture people mimicking the stances of sculptures in just about every city on Earth.

Nick: What initially drew you to New York as your primary subject?

David: Despite having lived here longer than any other place, I still feel like a stranger in a strange land. I think that compels me to document it, as if I’m only here temporarily.

Nick: What’s the greatest challenge of capturing the essence of the city?

David: When someone sees you, you become part of the photograph, and therefore alter it, making it something it shouldn’t have been. Being unobtrusive is my biggest challenge. Nobody bats an eye if you have an iPhone out, but it has become harder to take photos with a ‘proper’ camera. I’ve been aggressively challenged a couple of times, ironically on occasions when I wasn’t trying to take a picture, but just had a camera in my hand.

Nick: Are there specific neighborhoods or landmarks that you find yourself gravitating towards?

David: I love places where the scale of the city affects everyday scenes. The ribbons of land under the elevated subway and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the canyons of Wall Street at dusk, the madness of Times Square (a destination I’ve not yet managed to do justice to), the parts that are changing so fast that all that will remain soon will be memories and snapshots taken by people like me. I have an obsession with The High Line, which I remember before it was made into a park, and with the people who crowd it. And I’m endlessly intrigued by the way people interact with public art.

Nick: What challenges do you face in photographing a city as fast-paced and crowded as New York?

David: I love the pace, and am never happier than when surrounded by people so full of purpose that they don’t even notice me and my camera. I love to pick a spot that’s a little off to the side, or above, and people-watch.

Nick: Can you describe a moment or scene in New York that took you by surprise?

David: One of the pictures in this book shows a youth atop a high concrete pillar, standing under a spotlight in the dark. He and his friends clambered up there as I passed, and for a moment they all stood like statues under their individual lights, then jumped down and were gone. I have no idea what they were doing, and love that.

Nick: How does the diversity of the city inhabitants influence the way you frame your images?

David: To live in New York City is to be aware of the incredible diversity and to photograph the city is to understand you have a responsibility to show as many facets of it as you can, without fetishizing anyone. The question, ‘Why am I photographing this person?’ is a useful one to ask ourselves.

Nick: Do you prefer photographing New York during a particular time of day or season?

David: I’m drawn to extremes—I’m always out during storms, or on the hottest, wettest, or snowiest days—because then you see New Yorkers at their most New Yorkerish. I’m partial to shooting when the sun is just coming up, or setting, because of the long shadows and the change in mood as people prepare for light or dark.

Nick: Some images are color, some black and white. What determines that choice?

David: Often the lens I’m using. I shoot with manual lenses, often vintage, and there’s something about the history of a lens, as well as its flaws, that pushes me to choose between black and white or color. I have a gorgeous 1970s lens that creates saturated, dreamy color backgrounds. But I have a treasured ’90s lens adapted from Leica mount lenses that feels more suited to making black and white. Sometimes the lens determines the choice, other times it’s the scene. New York City can in an instant go from futuristic to something unchanged from the ’50s.

Nick: How have you determined the juxtapositions within the images themselves?

David: The way we view and interpret images depends on their context. Placing them in pairs, where the link may not be obvious at first, can give both of them greater meaning. Or perhaps just magnify the humor or whimsy [of the comparison]. It makes us look from one to the other, wondering why they work together.

Nick: What reaction are you hoping for from a viewer of your photographs?

David: Photography is at the same time a deeply shy and inherently arrogant act. It’s documenting a scene without ever being in the frame, but also assuming people want to see it through your eyes. If I can make someone’s day a little lighter, or richer, even for a moment, I’ll be happy.

Nick: When did you start taking photos and how has your work evolved over time?

David: I was given a Praktica film camera aged around 12, and can hardly bear to think about the opportunities I squandered. My work evolves because I’m mortified by the way I shot previously, and regret the pictures I didn’t get. I wish I could tell my younger self, ‘Don’t be afraid of the things you want to photograph.’

Nick: You have a real eye for the absurd. Is that something you are particularly drawn to when you are out with your camera?

David: I think we are all absurd, when we let our guard down. That’s when you see people as they really are, in all their ludicrous beauty.

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Wait for It will be sold at selected bookstores, and online at Grandeditions.com.