What Women Want

If you thought I was going to come up with an answer to that question you're nuts. But, I do know that some of them like jewelry, and so I offer you a jewelry trunk show at Huckleberry in Williamsburg on Saturday December 6th. I met one of the designers the other night who went to the Art Institute of Chicago and lived not too far from my home in Chicago. I didn't realize I had such an accent, but she pegged me from Chicago after 5 minutes. Now for what men want, 2 for 1 drink specials during a screening of Bad Santa this Monday at said Huckleberry. See, now everyones happy. See you there!

Hey! How You Doin'?

You know your president is from Chicago when he quotes a line from Casino when announcing principle members of his economic team. "He knows where all the bodies are buried." Time for some things to get done in Washington DC, . . . . . . . . . . the Chicago way. (Notice the White Sox hat? . . . . . nice.)

"Just Write It Off!"

I heard that all these rap guys feature all those expensive cars in their videos so they can write it off on their taxes. And since I take all my financial advice from Neo, I figured I'd feature my new lights in a shot for those same tax benefits. It's not a Bentley, but in relative terms they cost me about the same. Come to think of it, I've already featured my "crib" in many of my photos, looks like I'm in the black this year! Or is it in the green? I know it's not in the red, reds bad, must be black then, I don't know, whatever the good one is, that's the one I'm in.

Elena and Heather

Nothing like waking up early on a Saturday and re-touching to classic rock songs from the 70's and 80's! We're talkin' "Ah! Leah!" by Donnie Iris and "Jane" by Jefferson Starship. Turns out all the best songs are named after girlfriends of rock stars. . . . . . well, I take that back, there is Mandy by Barry Manilow. . . . . . . not that I have that on my ipod or anything, because I don't! (coming off a little too defensive?) probably.

Fashion Wars

Met up with my make-up artist friend Jen last night for a party at my new studio space in Williamsburg. The concept was "fashion wars" and they had an area set up where they took individual photos of people and then you were able to vote on whose style was better. As you can tell by the photo, I should have called Jen beforehand considering we wore basically the same outfit, gray v-neck t-shirt, black scarf, jeans. There was a cool collection of photos that plastered the walls of the studio. I thought they were really interesting so I'll have to find out the story behind them. I ran into a couple models I knew from previous shoots and also met a photographer friend of Jens that also assisted Bruce Weber! It was fun reminiscing with her about the good old days working for Bruce.

Autumn Leaves On My Garage

Bridgeport Beauty

There aren't many neighborhoods left in Chicago like Bridgeport. Heck, theres not many "neighborhoods" left period. When I try to explain to people where I grew up they never seem to understand. They look at me like a dog looks at his owner when they raise their voice high and offer a treat, they kind of tilt their head and if they want to understand, but they don't just quite seem to. The reason is that they have no frame of reference. Neighborhoods like my old neighborhood in Chicago don't seem to exist anymore and that's too bad. I tell everyone, "Picture an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn in the 1950's, or go back further to just about any scene from the Godfather 1 or 2". But with rising home prices that old world charm seems to be disappearing. When I go home my mom often says, "You never see any kids playing on our block anymore." "Out" are the big families, (my mom had 10 in hers and our neighbors had 9 and thats just from 2 houses). The person I am today is a direct result from the neighborhood in which I was raised, and there might be nicer areas to be from with bigger houses and larger front lawns, but they wouldn't be my neighborhood, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Here is a link to a story about Bridgeport, on a personal note both myself and my brother played basketball with John Aranza, and I went to school with his son, and Rosa Fratto is my next door neighbor back home.

Break Time

I think photography is the only career where taking a break from your job involves doing more of the same job. In this case I'm taking a break from re-touching to do more re-touching on some polaroids. This one I particularly love because it was an accident, and I have no way of knowing how to repeat it. You might say "But that's not a good thing, what if you want to repeat it?" To that I say "You lack the understanding of the beauty of polaroid and I must end this conversation immediately". The beauty is in the mistakes, the happenstance, something digital just doesn't give you, it's too perfect. Above is a polaroid I took of Sarah about a month ago. Now I must return from re-touching to do more re-touching.

Polaroid Experiment Take 1

So here's the situation. I think I realize why Polaroid is going out of business. Bad design. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the look and feel of the images, the distorted colors, the softness etc. But it is almost impossible to keep my new camera still when I take a picture. The button you press to release the shutter is at the front of the camera, when ideally it would be towards the back, where your hands are. Combine that with the slow shutter speed and the enormous amount of pressure to release the shutter and you get some blurry images. Now soft I can handle, I actually love this image of Fernanda for that reason, but the rest of the images look like I took them hopped up on crack. I call it bad-blur. I'm going to make some type of device to attach to a tri-pod to limit this so-called "bad blur", but I'm not giving up. And many thanks to Fernanda for playing along with my little experiment the other day. She's the best!

Fernanda

An Italian beauty from Brazil, and a total sweetheart. Does it get any better?

1st Dance

Here are a couple shots of my friend Frankies wedding. He said make it "artsy", so this is the route I took. The reception had about 250 people and we all had such an amazing time! I have a few more shots I will post, but right now I have post-production work from my shoots in Chicago to work on, not to mention the multiple shoots I have planned for next week. I did get my new/old polaroid camera in the mail this morning, and wouldn't ya know it, it works! Very excited!!!

Halloween 2008

Finally, I am able to post some images from Halloween. In no particular order, Erik as Devin Hester from the Bears, Lauren (and her friend Anshul) as kitty's, me as Batman, Josef as a puppy dog, and Karl as a Pirate, (no doubt exhausted from trick or treating). . . . . looks like Batman needs a shave.

South Side Pride

Another White Sox fan from the south side of Chicago makes it big! . . . . . if you consider the leader of the free world making it big. People might say it was his ground game, the get out the vote effort with young people, the sad state of the economy, . . . . . . . I say it was their graphic design team. . . . . . . just kidding of course, but you must admit the posters are pretty cool.

Could It Be?

I found this image floating around the web and I'm not sure but I think it might be a couple of my friends from the neighborhood. There are 2 clues that lead me to that conclusion. First the old school White Sox t-shirt, and second the darth vader mask. Not many people outside of Chicago, and especially outside this neighborhood, would be White Sox fans in the late 70's. Let's just say those teams weren't lighting up the win columns in those days. Now as far as the Star Wars mask, the biggest Star Wars fan I know happens to be My friend Frank who just got married. Now I'm not saying it's him, (looks a little short to be him,), but between that and Dino's relationship to the White Sox, and the time period, I just think a little further investigation is necessary on this topic.

Photographers Soulmate

Beautiful girl, check. A-symetrical haircut, check. Vintage polaroid camera, check. Honestly, does it get any better? Photo via we heart it.

Fresh, Clean, Beautiful

Here is a shot of Noelle from Saturday. Brand new girl that I can't wait to see walking around NYC in a few months. We kept things real clean for her first shoot. Gotta love pale skin and dark hair. Bangs. . . . . . an added bonus.

More From Day 3

Anastasia. Amazing body!!! Look for her in Miami later this month.

Ford Chicago Day 3

Cecily. See her in "The Big Apple" soon! Such a sweetheart with incredible eyes and rock star hair!!!

Ford Chicago Day 2

My goal was to post images from my friend Frankies wedding, and Halloween with the niece and nephews, but I left my card reader for that camera in NYC. So in leu of those images, which will be posted next week, I have an image of Dominique from todays shoot. The weather turned cool toady so we stayed in doors for the most part, but tomorrow looks promising for more outdoor shots.