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!

simple.

These are the 2 words that constantly swim in my mind when I visualize the photograph that I am going to take, and also when I’m in the middle of making photos.

Clean and simple.

I think there’s a correlation to how I want to live my personal life and my professional life. You know – clean and simple.

We recently moved into a lovely apartment in Brooklyn and moved our photography, video and music gear into a studio in Long Island City.

Boy, moving further enforced my clean + simple mantra.

With each move, I realize how much crap I tend to hang to (mostly for the memories they have) and how much crap I DON’T need in my life. Things are just that – objects – and there’s a line between objects that are worth keeping and….yes, crap! I corresponded with a professional organizer for a few weeks and she gave me a great tip (as I slapped my head against my forehead saying “DUH!”) – why don’t you photograph the objects you don’t REALLY need but you want to keep in your memories….and so I did just that, and in doing so I got rid of some things that were taking up space and dust. What a relief to get rid of bags of items and know that by giving them to Goodwill//Salvation Army, they will end up in another home.

I digress…..I’ve analyzed over and over my clean + simple mantra and now that I take a step back and look at my more recent work, I can see how it’s translated into my photography.

Take Dariana, for example.

I photographed her in my new Long Island City studio and I am so happy with the results. One light, a white wall, a beautiful girl and clean and simple images.

We have a heck of a rooftop in our new studio – a nice 360 view of Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, and going for this same mantra outdoors can be tricky, but alas, I feel I found a way to stick to clean + simple images.

Along with my this aesthetic, I was also ready to experiment with an old lens, my LensBaby 3G… and to even consider that I wanted to sell this thing, can you believe it! The last few shots were taken with this lens and I think in 2012 you’re going to see a lot more work with it. There’s something very beautiful, very organic and unexpected – I like knowing that each shot is going to be very different and unique with this lens.

I’ve been reading a lot more – books, blogs, etc – and I find that I haven’t been expressing my own voice very often when I blog – aside from the “and this is such and such and I shot them in such and such location” – i’m not really writing down my thoughts, my feelings and expressing MY VOICE, so I am going to make a point of doing more of that moving forward.

Very gladly, I am pleased to post images of Dariana. The way she moves, her legs, her elbows, I love all the angles she creates with her body. Her look and her movements flowed in front of the lens, and there was a level of comfort that we reached – one that I ALWAYS strive to reach, every time I photograph someone. Otherwise, if you can’t get the person comfortable in front of the camera, it becomes very evident in the photographs. If you can get someone relaxed, you can create some beautiful portraits.

Hair + Makeup: Angela Garcia

She was so much fun to work with – I love collaborating with models and have them bring ideas to the table – this was the case with the funny, beautiful and stunning Cassidy.

Hair and makeup were done by Patricia Ambroise Makeup and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the results. Patricia is one of those people that within the first few seconds you meet, there’s an instant awesome connection and you know you’re going to rock the photo shoot working together! A huge thank you as well to my friend Lindsey for her wardrobe styling help!

I think my style is evolving into more simple and clean work….I photographed Cassidy in a number of locations at Aloft Harlem, and when I went back to edit, I kept going to the images from our last location – a beautiful and simple sunlit room on the 6th floor.

I find something beautiful and serene in these images, quite possibly a mirror image of my desires for our new home, our new studio space, and this next chapter in our crazy New York journey (we’re moving to Brooklyn!).

My fabulous team was:

Model: Cherry Fu
Wardrobe: Daina Martin
Makeup: Deja Smith
Hair: Vicktor Stevenson
Assistants: Fernando Paz + Yue Edwards

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, so I introduced myself to Lauren Amaris, a model//singer//songwriter and told her I would love to photograph her. She agreed and we had a fantastic photo shoot. You can click here to listen to her music and go to the iTunes store to download her single, Dreaming American, title track to a short film by the same name, directed by Lee Percy.

Here are my favorite images from that session.

45-minute metro ride to South Ferry

30-minute ride on the Staten Ferry Island

40-minute bus ride to pick up Jenny (with an unusual traffic delay, no less)

THEN a 1 hr bus ride to Fort Wadsworth on 2 different buses. You see, bus #1 didn’t stop at our destination so we had to take another bus that DID stop where we needed to go.

1 insane U-turn (in the middle of a 4-lane highway) by the driver of bus #2 (the correct bus), when reminded by a 7-yr old girl on the bus that “don’t forget those ladies are going to Fort Wadsworth” It was the bus driver’s 1st week on this route (at least that’s what he told us….)

1 United States Terrorism Task Force member asking us if we were illegally filming on the premises (we weren’t – we were doing still photography)

A lot of laughter and tears from laughing so hard.

So here we are, on a beautiful sunny afternoon at Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island.

Jenny. Mother, actress, tattoo artist and wardrobe specialist.

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!

I am also THRILLED that I can finally post some of my favorite images from the bridal portrait session I had with Jana a few weeks ago down in Chelsea.

Photos from Jana & David’s wedding soon to follow!

Enjoy!
-Catalina

We started off at her seamstress’ locale – Ann Hamilton is terrific at her job. She took Jana’s dress – a find at a vintage store – and turned it into an absolutely breathtaking wedding gown.

After we wrapped at Ann’s, off we went to the meatpacking district for some outdoor shots.

We walked around the Lower East Side for a recent photography session and i think it’s safe to say by the looks of it, that they are very much in love.

Gracias chicos por la oportunidad de crear estas fotos y captar tantos lindos momentos!

We started off at Houston Street, where a Shepard Fairey mural had stood until late this summer. In its place is the Barry McGee mural, made up of names of famous street artists.

I loved her shirt!

There’s something in her expression here that I adore.

Next door, there was an antique shop where we had fun with a pair of old suitcases (which reminded me of Mad Men’s recent episode “The Suitcase” based on their client, Samsonite)

Next, we headed to the Sunshine Cinema, a place that Fabiola and Ivar frequent. I love the NYC yello taxi cab in the background along with the theatre sign.

From here, we walked Alphabet City and came across this fun wall.

Gracias chicos!

Hair and wardrobe was done by Norine, and makeup by Regina de Lemos (regina.makeup@gmail.com)

Danica was great to work with; she is such a natural!