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No, these photos weren’t taken for an upcoming SCPD beefcake calendar.
It was just NYC photographer and Kings Park native Nolan Regan doing what he does best, capturing moments in time — and shooting great portraits of men and women in uniform.
In this moment, he approached 6th precinct police officer Joseph Tedesco on Saturday as Tedesco was on patrol in Farmingville, and while Regan was at a nearby birthday bash.
The video of Regan’s interaction with Tedesco subsequently posted to TikTok and Instagram has already racked up over 70,000 views combined and climbing steadily.
Regan, who had a previous video of Ossining police officers go viral with nearly 8 million views, said he was with a friend when he spotted Tedesco’s squad car on the street.
“I wasn’t going to make a video because I was with my friend, but she insisted I run down,” he said. “I saw him earlier, before I got to my friend’s house, so I waited a bit to see if he’d come back … but he wasn’t there.”
He eventually came back, and Regan asked politely if he could take photos for TikTok. The officer responded in the affirmative.
“Would you be able to put the lights on, or no?’ Regan, who just turned 20, asked the officer.
“Let’s have a little fun with it,” Tedesco obliged.
The P.O. was thrilled with the results.
“Heck yeah. Sick. That’s so cool,” he said while peering into the young cameraman’s viewfinder. Here are two of the photos:
Regan started photographing only police officers for his social media feeds in July of this year.
“I just think it shows a lot more positivity then traditional news sources show about cops,” he said. “Most of the time when cops are in the news, it’s not a good thing, so me knowing how things can blow up on TikTok I wanted to try and fix the perception of them,” he said.
Regan said this one was his favorite:
