A fashion strategist by day and a jazz drummer by night, Brendan Brady has built a life in New York around the two, and they have more in common than the hours keep apart. We spent an afternoon following him through his city, captured on film by Joseph Beeching, from the wide-open water at South Street Seaport to the quiet of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, with dumplings and a dive bar or two on the way.

He lives deeper into Brooklyn, but likes to come to the edge of it. "I find it so fun to remind myself that New York is an island," he says. "The sweeping views from the ports, or on the ferry, always take my breath away. A welcome reset from the day to day." It's the same instinct that sends him wandering on his days off, into small shops and hole-in-the-wall restaurants and galleries, letting one neighbourhood spill into the next. The museums are non-negotiable. "I grew up spoiled for choice in DC. You can spend an entire weekend at the Met and never see it all."

Ask where the eye comes from and he points to painters and authors, people who turn a life into something you can stand in front of. The admiration shows up in how he dresses, too. "There's something about a paint-covered chore jacket that checks my boxes," he says, and you know exactly the look he means: clothing that has done some work and wears the proof.