What if I told you that the meaning of life is inside of something as simple as a puddle.

Yes, a puddle.

How many times have we walked by a puddle, aloof. Or stepped inside a puddle, with rage. We jump to avoid them and wear boots to protect ourselves from them. Whatever it is that we are doing, it is not interacting.

Well, at least most people are not.

I recently met Nancy Hightower. An adjunct professor at FIT and Hunter as her day job, but with a side business idea that quite literally, blew my mind.

Nancy is a professional photographer of puddles. And what a talent she has.

She left a home and steady job in Colorado to look for something else.

Magic. And she wanted to find it, here in New York City.

We walked up 10th Avenue together. The rain had been falling for two days. So many puddles, so many stories. I wanted to know everything about her process of finding the puddles and capturing the images inside.

I learned the key is to get low, low enough. You want to get really low. It’s not uncommon for me to return home smelling like puddles, she told me.
I asked her what a puddle smells like, and she smiled an instant smile;

The city. They smell like the city.

I have been in love with the smells of this city for over a decade. Somehow, I’ve even grown to love the smell of the hot trash, or the A/C in the train, or the freshly cut grass in Central Park. But never have I thought about the smell of a puddle.

Turns out the smells of a puddle are not the only thing that I had not been observing.

There are worlds inside these puddles, Nancy told, and subsequently showed me.

Back in 2020 and 2021, Nancy was living in Chelsea. She started walking the streets in a time where everyone was moving away. The city was empty of people, but frequent rains left puddles galore. Nancy started looking inside the puddles, and then photographing them.

“I would look at these giant puddles and almost get vertigo looking into this landscape that was a mirror of where I was. And it felt like Alice in the looking glass, where if I just peered in too far, I would fall in. And I loved that feeling, because how often to we get to feel like we are in a story book?”

Let’s start with the technical. I asked Nancy if she could share a few of her favorite shots.

“I just got Radio City Music Hall from a puddle that was right underneath the lights while it was still raining, and I had to wait and catch the picture in between drops. I have a beautiful picture of the Highline that is split between worlds. I do have a wonderful picture of Times Square caught in a massive puddle on 8th Avenue and the buildings look like they are dancing, and that is joy” (You can see a selection of Nancy’s favorites below, and also in the video).