style

I love people who have style (not just in terms of fashion but the way they carry themselves and talk). I met some classy people this weekend, it was refreshing. I still have some more pics I'd like to add but didn't have time to look through them all. Besides that getting ready for a new shoot this weekend. Nervous cause I have a lot of work ahead of me.

he's got style

style and talent...

let me tell ya... this lady can sing!

what?.. it's an art shot

stylen duo

and the winner is........

........ oh my god!

smooth

the lovely host

Peace Love and Ice Cream

From our trip up to Vermont.

Forest Spirit

Model: Jane

Best weekend ever.... thanks to Jane (and Tony for a quick spontaneous meet up). It's been far too long since I last had a chance to work with Jane. I almost forgot how awesome she is (emphasis on almost). First of all I love that she always follows through on plans we make (no matter how complicated they are) and never complains about anything. I asked her on Friday if she'd meet up on Sunday. I warned her that I had no clue what we'd be doing. I was kind of stressing out because I had no ideas. All I knew was that I wanted to shoot very early in the morning, like 5 or 6am. First I asked Jane to come into the city and meet me there at 6am for a city shoot. Late Saturday afternoon, I suddenly got this odd feeling about the whole thing. For some reason my gut was telling it wasn't the right location. It suddenly hit me that I wanted to shoot in the forest. So Jane ended up coming over to my place at 9pm because we needed to figure out the outfit and make up.

We decided to get up at 3:15am to have enough time for getting ready and capture the morning light. I was totally exhausted (I was up the night before until 3am which I normally never do). We somehow managed to make the outfit out of underwear, ribbons and other stuff I had at home. We also decided to paint her whole body a bit white to make her stand out more against the forest.

Getting up at 3:15am was NOT easy. I was tired but it was nice hanging out with Jane. We took our time drinking coffee which was a mistake cause before we knew it, it was 5am. I kind of freaked since I desperately wanted to get there by 5:30am before the sun was up and people were out and about. It was a mad rush getting ready. I did end up forgetting a small part of the outfit, oh well. We got there and I was totally stressing because I didn't know what I was doing and what I wanted. As you may know I hardly ever shoot outdoors. The bug situation wasn't pretty, we were covered in bug spray.

After I relaxed I could tell we'd get some good shots. I liked how Jane was glowing against the background. The white body make up paid off. The pictures didn't do her justice though. She looked so pretty and elegant in person. I could almost imagine her dancing around. She reminded me of a forest spirit.

Ms. Nikki is back

Model: Nikki
Make Up: Tamara

Nikki asked me to do a shoot with her to get some shots of her new tattoos. I was happy to do so since it's been a long time since I last had a chance to shoot Nikki (last time was in 2007). While her new tattoos are certainly interesting I kept wanting to focus on her eyes. As you can see she has amazing eyes. We tried a few things with the tattoos like add some oil to make them more contrasty but then I was getting too much glare from the lights. Adding powder on the other hand tended to wash them out a bit. I decided that I'll have to do another shoot that's not so much about the tattoos to really capture Nikki. Tamara did an awesome job with the make up.

Flower power

Rhododendrons

?

??

Flowers?! Has she gone mad? Hey you know, I have other interests too :), I'm loving our yard this year. I don't know why I never did before. Perhaps I just never took the time to look around. I started to and couldn't believe how gorgeous it is. I got so inspired that I decided to start a rose garden. At the moment we planted 8 rose bushes. 4 are climbing roses we'll see how that will go (I admit I have a rather bad track record when it comes to plants). Anyway here are a few pics of various things growing in our yard. Since I don't know shit about flowers I couldn't tell you what most of them are. If you happen to know, let me know :) ..... oh and yes a few new portrait shoots are in the works. July will be my month of photography, I have big plans so stay tuned.

American Ballet Theater

I took Ella to a kids ballet workshop and performance hosted by the American Ballet Theater at Lincoln Center. It was really awesome. While the workshop was for kids it gave me the chance to walk around backstage in the Metropolitan Opera house. I'd never seen this and it was fascinating walking through the corridors lined with all kinds of props and set pieces. However what I enjoyed most was seeing Ella's reaction to the Metropolitan Opera Stage. I figured from a kids perspective it must seem even more enormous. She was quite taken back and it was such a pleasure to see her reactions to everything. I have to admit she was almost equally impressed by the big fountain in the middle of Lincoln Center as with the ballet :)

friendship

Model: Evenie

I did a shoot yesterday with one of my oldest friends from here in the US. It actually was a trade, Evenie is an amazing jewelry designer (on hiatus unfortunately, she now works for Tiffany's) so I traded the shoot for some original jewelry of hers which I adore. She wanted to do a shoot for her husband so unfortunately this was a closed door shoot and I won't be posting pics (besides the one above) since they are private and on the racy side :) ..... it's unfortunate though since she looked lovely in a lot of them and she has a killer body.

Evenie is literally one of the first persons I met when I came to the US. To be honest, when I first met her I wasn't sure what to think of her. I still remember how this little 5'1, crazy, Puerto Rican girl entered the room, laughing and greeting everybody. You must understand that I had just come over from Switzerland where people are far more reserved, especially in a situation where you don't know anybody. But I realized quickly this girl is a lot of fun. I'm sometimes amazed that we stayed friends over all these years (it's been 16 years) especially since we don't see each other very often. Somehow we still manage to stay close and whenever we do see or talk to each other it's like she's always been around. The thing I most value about her is how straight forward and honest she is. You always know what's going on with her. She will tell you what she is thinking or if she doesn't like something and she is consistent. Recently my friend Virginia used a quote about art that I felt you could also use to describe friendships: "True friendships survive the test of time"