A few months ago, someone stole Bolton Brown’s gym bag from his locker. His favorite jacket was gone. So were his keys — and his passport. With a trip to Italy coming up, he needed a new one. This, of course, meant a new photo.

So Brown went where he’d gone five years before: Eliz Digital, a small, cash-only film shop in Chinatown, wedged between a hair salon and a food market. It was quick, like the first time, Brown said. The woman behind the camera, Chunika Kesh, is “pretty down to business. Straightforward. Just tells you where to sit, tells you where to look.”

A few minutes and $25 later, Brown had his portrait. He posted it to X — “the best portrait photographer in ny is the chinese passport photo lady on elizabeth lol” — and now more than 1.1 million people have seen the photo o

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