DMA #52: The Patron Saint of NYC Comedy Photos, with Mindy Tucker

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When I first moved to New York 12 years ago, I did what every terrified transplant does: I asked other comedians for advice…

This was a mistake, because comedians are a bag of cats and no two of them agree on anything. One told me to do every open mic in the city. One told me to do none of them. One told me, with great seriousness, to “find my inner hobgoblin,” which is the kind of thing people say when they have no actual information to give you and would like you to leave them alone please.

But there was one piece of advice that came back every single time, from every single person, like a liturgical response…

“Go get yourself a Mindy.”

Stop using Facebook photos for your headshot, you absolute disgrace, and go get a real one done by Mindy Tucker.

So I did. That’s how we met. I schlepped to her studio in Brooklyn, helped her haul lighting gear around Williamsburg in search of a wall that wasn’t a condo yet, sweated through a shirt, and carried the gear back up the stairs again. We did things this way because we couldn’t afford a studio, and back then you could still shoot outside before the entire borough turned into guarded glass.

That was twelve years ago. This week, Mindy came on Draw Me Anything, and I finally got to tell a few thousand people what the New York comedy scene has known for two decades: she’s the best there is.

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Here’s the thing about Mindy that took me years to understand. She doesn’t just take a good photo. She gets something out of you that nobody else can.

Comedians are a nightmare to photograph. We’re always on. We’re cracking wise, busting balls, performing, running a bit, because the bit is a shield and the camera is a threat. Point a lens at a comic and watch them deploy their entire personality as a defence mechanism.