Catalina Photography | New York based portrait photographer | fluent in Spanish, French, English, Hugarian & Italian » Portrait Photography

Vintage Shoot

catalina — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:08:12 +0000

One day, out of the blue, I got an email from a fashion designer – Adrina Nelson – who wanted me to photograph three dresses that she was working on.

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!

Mike Alaska, Part 1

catalina — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:14:18 +0000

I was hired by a writer to create images for an Ecuadorian magazine.

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!

Cassidy at Aloft Harlem

catalina — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:42:31 +0000

I had a shoot lately with Ford model Cassidy Alexei.

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!).

Cherry + The Light bulbs

catalina — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 17:46:22 +0000

Over the summer, I had this vision in my head….a dark image that involved a model and a bouquet of light bulbs….I sketched it out and, thanks to a very talented and enthusiastic team, I was able to extract this image and make it a reality.

My fabulous team was:

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

Lauren Amaris

catalina — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 14:41:30 +0000

“Wow, look at her legs!!!” I said to Juan one night as we went on a stroll in our neighborhood.

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.

Lindos Ramos

catalina — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:45:22 +0000

While walking around in Barcelona, a white dress with black polka dots in a storefront caught my eye. We went inside, and started talking to the store owner. “Que es esta cosa?” (”what’s this thing?” – and I was referring to a part of the dress that drove me into the store) and she immediately said to me – “Tu eres Venezolana, verdad” (”You must be from Venezuela, correct?”) and indeed, she was correct.

And that is how I met Lindsey, professional dancer, fashion designer, and owner of that cute shop, Lindos Ramos. Needless to say, we hit it off and spent a good while talking about our backgrounds and passions.

That afternoon, we ended up chatting for a long time and I returned the next day to take some photographs of her store and the beautiful items that she designs and sells there. In the back of the store she designs, cuts and makes just about everything that she sells in the front, including dresses, bags, headbands, hair clips. I love capturing the behind-the-scenes images because they complete the story – it’s not just about the final product; it’s about the process, from the fabrics, to cutting each piece, to sewing and ironing the finished product and the surroundings in her workshop that inspire Lindsey to create her brand.

If you are ever in Barcelona, be sure to stop by her store, Lindos Ramos!

Children of Sevilla

catalina — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 14:00:55 +0000

Before arriving in Cadiz (read here about it), Juan and I spent a day in Sevilla, where we met some of the friendliest folks in the Andalusia region.

We got off the train and found a bike rental place, where the manager told us the ins and outs of the city, where we should go and where we could stay, and how to get to the heart of Sevilla.

Have I mentioned I suck at directions?…..So off we headed to the center of Sevilla and you guessed it, we got a bit lost…however, magical things happen when you get lost, stop to eat and ask for directions.

This was the case as the hot noon sun was beating down on us, lost tourists, so we decided to stop at the next bar to grab a cold beer and some tapas.

The bar was teeming with children and their parents……a perfect photo opp.

Once we hydrated and ate, I grabbed my camera and asked the children if I could take their pictures – they were not shy – as you can see from these portraits!

Getting lost is sometimes the best thing that can happen to you; these turned out to be some of my favorite portraits of the trip!

Anna + The Cello

catalina — Thu, 26 May 2011 00:34:35 +0000

We recently had the pleasure to watch our friend and illustrator Shantell Martin project her awesome illustrations onto cellist extraordinaire Anna Callner at a photography studio’s cyc wall.

Now I have seen Shantell perform plenty of times in the year we’ve known each other, and I must admit that this was one of my all time favorite shows. There is something about the cello, the way Anna plays so passionately classical and contemporary music and Shantell’s imagery on and around Anna that blew me away.

Without further adue, here are some images from that uber special evening.

Q&A with Shantell took place after the performance.

Jennie

catalina — Tue, 24 May 2011 04:28:40 +0000

Here are all the things that went into making this photo:

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.

Mauricio Portraits

catalina — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 14:18:12 +0000

Mauricio, known as Maurimixx of Los Amigos Invisibles, was recently in town and I had the pleasure of taking his portraits for his clothing line, Missile.

These are some highlights from our session.