The Sea is My Home

‘The Sea is My Home’ is an unconventional collaborative project between myself, a Dutch documentary photographer living in NYC and Aseed, an unhoused veteran living on Coney Island Beach. Our pictures together tell the story of Aseed’s remarkable life.

When the sun rises over Coney Island each morning, Aaasssyyyrr a.k.a Aseed is the first to greet it. “There’s no better view in the world,” he says.

Referring to the beach as his humble abode, Aseed has lived there since the start of the pandemic. "I was born on a navy ship to a Mongolian-Japanese mom and a Portuguese-Saudi Arabian dad. So the sea is my home." Aseed served most of his life as a Navy SEAL, which gave him the survival skills to live outside year-round. "Having no comfort is comforting," he tells me, sitting in the snow. “These seven layers of clothing are my house: they shelter me from the malice intent in the world.”

I met Aseed over a year ago and was struck by his remarkable fortitude. I’ve been visiting him several times a week ever since. The ritual of our visits has evolved into an ongoing collaboration. By day, I make photographs of Aseed as he tells me stories, and by night, he photographs his surroundings with boundless imagination with an underwater camera that, like him, can withstand most weather conditions. The images are mostly taken in total solitude, showing Coney Island as most of us never see it. These sporadic and poetic captures give us a glimpse into Aseed’s inner world.

Together, our pictures tell the story of Aseed’s remarkable life on Coney Island Beach and reflect the dualities of external and internal landscapes: beauty and loneliness, freedom and dependency, fantasy and survival.