Aspir­ing pho­tog­ra­ph­er Sam Cohen knows there must be more to life than help­ing his father run the fam­i­ly busi­ness in Cleve­land, Ohio. He sets off for New York City and stum­bles into an unfor­get­table adven­ture in the heart of the celebri­ty and art world of the 1980s. He appren­tices with ​“John­ny Strand the Pho­to Man” in his wacky com­mer­cial stu­dio. Sam gets his big break a year lat­er when he becomes the assis­tant to the world-famous pho­tog­ra­ph­er Izzy Teiv­el. It is an aus­pi­cious start for Sam but real­i­ty sets in and dys­func­tion pre­vails. Izzy is revered by her fans, clients, and sub­jects but is unre­al­is­ti­cal­ly demand­ing to every­one, espe­cial­ly Sam, who finds him­self ques­tion­ing his choic­es and san­i­ty. The pres­sure near­ly caus­es a ner­vous break­down man­i­fest­ing as night­mares of his father’s past as a sur­vivor of the death camps dur­ing the Holo­caust. Sam’s guilt in leav­ing his fam­i­ly behind is trig­gered by Izzy’s por­trait assign­ment pho­tograph­ing the famous Jew­ish writ­ers Elie Wiesel and I.B. Singer for Van­i­ty Way mag­a­zine. Moral­ly con­flict­ed, Sam has to decide whether to return to Cleve­land to help his estranged father and over­pro­tec­tive moth­er or to stay in New York City and pur­sue his dreams.