I was exited and couldn’t wait to meet her and see the dresses she was working on. Upon meeting her and looking at the dresses she had made, it look less than 5 minutes to realize we were EXACTLY on the same wavelength as far as how we each visualized these images. Vintage, long gloves, martini glasses…..Mad Men!

And so I assembled my team, some of whom I’ve worked with before, and some with whom I was itching to work with – finally, after being in New York for two years, I feel I have found a great group of people I can work with on commercial shoots and personal projects. Angela, who did Dariana’s hair and makeup in a shoot late last year was on set, as was stylist extraordinnaire Colby Milano, and the beautiful Kelsey Lear Lafferty who came in from Philadelphia for the photo shoot, and my friend Darcy Rogers assisted me.

I had been dreaming about this shoot for days on end and knew, in my gut, that this shoot was going to be a success……and indeed, I couldn’t have been happier.

Everyone was at the top of their game, Adrina’s dresses were simply beautiful, classic and elegant and I was able to shoot in my studio space on my very own 9′ white seamless with a new medium softbox as my source of light. It was amazing.

I wanted to shoot clean and simple and use a few props here and there. This is the kind of shoot that I would love to take on location, maybe find a cool hotel lobby or a place with some vintage furniture or a bar with character.

It was really great to have an energetic crew and create images this way. Feedback and suggestions were made, we tried different things – some worked and some didn’t – and I took away many lessons from this experience – some that one will read and say “duh!” while others that are not that obvious.

1 – Working with a stylist enriches your vision, which translates into images that might otherwise be just OK.

2 – Having an open mind and listening to suggestions from others on set who are also in this together is important. It’s important to listen, to try, to shoot it in a different way and see the outcomes on screen (I shot these tethered so we could all see and make adjustments as we went).

3 – Expect the unexpected – doing #2 led to a variety of images, many of which worked well.

4 – Pintrest ROCKS! It is serving as my mood boards and inspiration boards for work that I want to create – on set and on location. Sharing this board with everyone before the shoot and asking my team to share their ideas was important – this way we were all on the same page well before the shoot.

5 – Treating everyone with respect is kind of a big deal. I speak from personal experience from many many photo and video shoots. I’ve been yelled at, humiliated and treated badly on set by other people in the past (unrightfully so) and I don’t EVER want to make anyone feel that way…..feeling like you want to crawl into a hole or just run out of the room because someone  yelled at you just to show off…that’s not right…. SO,  I treat everyone the way that I want to be treated. Simple as that.

Posted here are some of my favorite images and thanks again to my wonderful team. You rocked!

In finishing what I started last week, here are photos I took of Mike Alaska in action – performing in the Union Square subway platform.

Enjoy!

In this 2-part assignment, the first part was to create portraits of street bucket drummer Mike Alaska – whom, if you’ve been to NYC and seen him play in the subways – is a drumming force to be reckoned with.

The second part, which I will post in a few days, was to capture Mike, in action drumming in a subway station.

When I have ample time with a subject, I like to experiment and try different things and I did just that with Mike.

We started off in an alley way making some portraits and eventually ended up on a rooftop with a beautiful view of the Manhattan skyline.

Here are some images from that first session.

For the next shot, we tried a few different ways of throwing the drum sticks up in the air, and this was by far my favorite shot. Look at his eyeball!

We are in the middle of shooting a music video for this terrific duo, as well as creating collaterals such as posters, images for their CD and website.

These are just a taste of what’s to come!

The Light Factory’s website describes the show, “Life is overwhelming and stressful. As we work through our busy schedules, we often realize at the end of the day what is truly important. In Bring the Family, photographers Tina Barney, Lydia Panas, Catalina Kulczar-Marin, and Natalie Young explore the need for family, friends, and home.”

Now, I lived in Charlotte, NC for 12 years. For about 8 of those, I attended shows at The Light Factory, participated in 6 of their annual Shoot Outs, was a member, donated art to their auctions and met amazing photographers, some of whom became mentors of mine……and now it was my art and my name on their walls. wow.

I walked into the Knight Gallery on opening night of Bring The Family, not having a clue as to how many images were going to be shown or in what form and let me tell you, the show took my breath away. All 7 formal portraits of my amazing, beautiful, strong couples from Let Love Reign were hanging on one wall, all displayed side-by-side.

It’s not often that I’m left speechless………..and speechless I was at the show. Speechless. Humbled. Excited. In Awe.

Bring The Family will be on display through May 22nd so if you’re in Charlotte, drop by The Light Factory and check it out!

A few weeks ago, Kirshenbaum, Bond, Senecal + Partners hired me to photograph KBS+P President and CEO Lori Senecal for The New York Times.

You can click here to read the full article and here is the image they published and article screenshot.

It’s hard to believe that almost a year has passed since my first photo shoot with them! Since that time, we have been working hard and building a library of environmental, abstract & product images, including T-shirts, cakes, muffins, shopping bags, and of course, their yummy cupcakes – some seasonal and some available all year round.

If you live here or plan on a visit to New York City, be sure to check out Magnolia Bakery in one of their 4 locations – Bleeker Street, Grand Central, Upper West Side on Columbus or Rockefeller Center.

Here are some of the images I created for Magnolia in 2010.

Fall cupcakes.

Muffins.

T-shirts for their NY, LA and Dubai stores.

Cupcakes.

Environmental & abstract.

In editing these images, I realized that I was enthralled with the beautiful, sunny skies we had every single day we spent in Budapest.

I love the textures and shapes of the clouds in these shots – I could spend hours looking at each shot and making out different objects in the clouds….did you ever do that as a kid?

Alas, here are some more Budapest images – enjoy and feel free to leave a comment and tell me if you see any shapes in these clouds!

This particular series is of some of the more abstract images I created while in my mother and my Meme’s birthplace this past July.