‘I’m pretty sure he was checking his own phone at the time’: Monaris’s best phone picture

The photographer and Instagrammer looks back at the day under Manhattan Bridge when a hobby became a calling

It was a moody January morning in Brooklyn, New York, when Monaris, whose real name is Paola Franqui, headed to a local pier to meet a group of strangers. The 100 or so she found there were fellow Instagram aficionados, armed with iPhones and a sense of camaraderie and possibility. It was 2014 and the social media platform was booming. I was working nine to five for a Taiwanese logistics company at the time," she says, but photography was my passion. After that day, I started taking it more seriously; three years later, I was saying no to so many opportunities that I quit my job and went full-time."

Looking back, Monaris feels lucky to have started out when she did. It's harder to build your brand now, because there are so many of us."