East West - The Asian American Lifestyle Magazine

by Anita Malik

An exchange with celebrity photographer Nigel Barker, best known as a judge on Tyra Banks’ hit reality show, “America’s Next Top Model,” rewards the listener with nuggets of wisdom and striking one-liners, all delivered with his charming English accent.

“New York is East and West. It is a great combination of the whole and really mixed,” says the former model about his part-time home and the headquarters for his photography studio, StudioNB. “It is more like a soup than a salad,” Barker continues. “Other parts of the country are like a salad bowl; you get the mix, but the ingredients stay separate. But New York is like soup, really integrated; that’s what’s fun and interesting about it.”

Barker’s own life and family are also, in fact, quite soup-like – perhaps even curry-like.
Barker’s father is British and his mother, a former Miss Sri Lanka, is part English and part Sri Lankan, and he says growing up in a home with his Sri Lankan grandmother meant they “ate a lot of curry.”

Today, eastern influences continue to impact Barker in his multicultural life and home with 1-year-old son, Jack, and wife, Cristen, a former model who is part Chinese and hails from Alabama. His eastern roots even received mention on last season’s “America’s Next Top Model,” causing the longest-standing judge on the show—with the exception of Banks—to “bite my tongue. . . "

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