Bolton Brown knew he looked good.
The 33-year-old carpenter had just replaced his passport and the new picture was a banger. In it, his swept-back hair and sunken cheekbones would look more at home in a classic American Apparel ad than the TSA PreCheck line. He uploaded the photo to X and wrote: “The best portrait photographer in ny is the chinese passport photo lady on elizabeth lol.”
The internet rabidly agreed. The secret was out; Gothamist went huge with it, and his post has now been viewed over a million times. People in his replies were quick to praise the artist behind the lens, comparing her work to Richard Avedon and Bruce Gilden. “I need this lady,” one wrote. “Damn,” another proclaimed, “I’m bout to book a flight she ate this.”
the best portrait photographer in ny is the chinese passport photo lady on elizabeth lol pic.twitter.com/JDOrqIMl7f
— me (@boltsfood) September 13, 2025
“She” is Chunika Kesh, the proprietor of Eliz Digital, an unremarkable storefront in New York City’s Chinatown.
“It’s crazy because it’s a very small place,” Brown said. “You just sit against a white wall and it’s a tiny little chair, and she just takes one photo of you with a huge flash and it looks perfect. She’s just good at what she does. She’s really sweet but also very fast, no-nonsense and gets it done. She’s a good example of doing your job exceptionally well.”
Kesh’s setup is, in fact, disarmingly simple. I know because I went to check it out in October, eager to see her sorcery up close. Even as I stood outside, watching a steady stream of customers flow in and out, a woman walked by leading a large tour group. She paused to declare: “This is my favorite film store!”
The store itself is narrow with a long wall of mirrors — great for a last-minute hair check. The passport station is at the back and consists of a low chair in front of a counter lined with a white sheet.
There is the master herself. “I always try my best,” said Kesh, who swears there’s “no secret” to her stellar results and insists it’s more about her subject relaxing. A passport picture should look like the person, she said, so that’s what she’s aiming for: “It’s more you guys, not really me.”
Kesh was already a legend in my mind. I’d already talked with several of her devotees who’d described their beloved ritual of swinging by her store; each explained that much of their love for the place lies in their love for its owner. Many described forming fast friendships with her across the film counter. I couldn’t wait to meet her. But when I called to ask if I could drop by to shoot a little video, she demurred.
It would be all right, she told me, if I came by and filmed her customers — and she would be happy to take my passport picture — but could she not be a part of the story, she asked?
That reticence is core to Kesh’s charm. She displays no ego and is deeply self-effacing about her talents. As I discovered when we did finally meet, her hesitation stemmed from a deep desire not to disappoint anyone. She seemed bemused by her shop’s recent virality and we were all making her nervous that people would come expecting something she could not deliver.
That anxiety hardly seems necessary. In under two minutes she took, without exaggeration, the best photo anyone’s ever taken of me.
Here’s how it went. She had me take a seat and then began to make very minor adjustments in a soothing voice — telling me to sit up straight, lean to the right, relax, tilt my head, shake out my shoulders, fix my hair, smile, smile a little less. She modeled the subtle movements she wanted me to make, slowly and delicately, supportive and gentle — but with the clear vision of an art director.
Shooting on a fairly basic DSLR camera, Kesh has her primary light attached to the top. Behind the chair, she’s positioned a light to get rid of any shadows, and a piece of white foam board angled in front of the subject adds an extra pop of brightness, “to even it out a little bit,” she said.
From everything I saw, the magic actually comes from her, not what she called her “very simple” setup, which she hopes to someday upgrade with more lights. “I’ve been thinking about it a long time but I don’t know when it’s going to be,” she said, and smiled. It’ll have to wait until she’s “not so lazy,” she said.
The shop’s utilitarian vibe hasn’t changed much since she took over the store 10 years ago from her late brother. He opened it in the late ‘80s, a few years after the family emigrated to New York from China’s Guangdong province when Kesh was a teenager. For decades they had two locations, though the second store closed before COVID; Kesh helped out with the business while pursuing a master’s degree in accounting. She doesn’t have a formal background in photography but says she’s taken a few classes over the years to learn the basics.
“I wish I can be better,” she told me, as she handed over the best pictures that will ever exist of me in my lifetime. “Next time maybe I can do better and take a better photo of you.”
Though she has no desire for the spotlight, Kesh is very much the star of a handful of social media series. There’s the TikToks Sam Shekian posts every month, chronicling her trip to take passport pictures.
Shekian, 26, is a kindergarten teacher on the upper East Side, and first had Kesh take her picture as kind of a gag. She was in the neighborhood with a friend, hoping to get their auras read, but found the place closed. Already familiar with Eliz Digital from getting film developed, Shekian suggested passport pics instead; at the time, “passport photo makeup” was a TikTok trend. It went so well she came back the next month, and the next, and the next. Now she’s come every month for nearly four years.
“I’m a woman of routine,” Shekian said. “It just became a thing that was — I can’t stop now, how can I stop?”
Her Eliz Digital pictures now serve as a time capsule. “To see where I am as a person, to look back at the photos and to see the different points in my life and who I was, that in itself shows me it’s ok to change,” she said. “Whether I look good or not, it looks like myself and she’s just capturing who I am, so I think that’s the special part.”
On Instagram, if you search the geotag for Eliz Digital, you’ll find a flood of posts from Laura Fuchs. She’s a professional photographer who’s turned her trips to the store into a ritual. Each time she goes, she saves the last two exposures on her roll of film: one to take a picture of Kesh, and the other to have Kesh take a picture of her. She captions the series “Chunika & Me.”
“People love it,” Fuchs said. “I’ve been told that I need to make a book out of it. They love it and they love her.”
Over the years, the women have become so close they now go to brunch and the ballet together. “I love her, I really do,” Fuchs said. “She’s a special person.” Even when the store is packed — and it often is — Kesh radiates calm, supportive energy and can be found helping customers navigate their cameras, even if she’s not familiar with them herself.
“She’s just really patient,” Fuchs said. “And I like people who demystify film photography, because I think everybody should shoot film.”
That film photography is enjoying a nostalgia-inspired resurgence definitely contributes to Eliz Digital’s popularity.
“The vibe has shifted,” said Kayla Trivieri, 29, a store regular who picked up film photography last year and discovered Eliz Digital deep in a Reddit thread.
“I feel like I always have a disposable camera on me or a film camera on me. It’s the surprise of ‘Oh, we’re taking a photo and I’m not going to take 50 photos and pick the best photo.’ No, you get what you get and you don’t know what it even looks like until it gets printed. You get to enjoy the moment more and also the photos more.”
Trivieri has been such an evangelist for the store that when Brown’s post went viral, her phone blew up.
“Probably five of my friends sent me that tweet and they were like ‘it’s over,’” she said, and laughed.
what’s the passport place on canal where everyone gets good photos. i need to renew my passport and will not let cbp catch me looking ugly
— g a b y (@gabydvj) November 20, 2025
“Everyone’s like, ‘Nooo, your place! I was like, damn, because I really kind of was trying to gatekeep that. My initial reaction was like, people are going to find out now because it was going super viral, and I was kind of upset, but at the same time, they deserve it. I hope they get all the abundance and business,” she said.
As for that photo that sparked the buzz, Brown said Kesh’s work not only got rave reviews online but at the passport agency, too.
“The people were like, ‘That’s a good photo!’” Brown said. “I’m not sure what it is, but she’s got the sauce.”