Jaime J

Jaime was an absolute pleasure to shoot! (I think the sentence I used when talking to her agent was "I would shoot her any day of the week and twice on Sundays!") She is a stunner in person, not to mention she had the best personality, (which as you know from reading my blog, is one of, if not the most important thing to me when shooting). Granted, if you are already with an agency, chances are you have the necessary physical traits. Personality then separates the men from the boys, (or the women from the girls I guess). I was also impressed with how well she moved! For someone who I believe only tested once before, she rocked! Looking forward to my next editorial here in Chicago, Jaime is definitely on my short short list.

Croatians and Italians

My neighborhood is pretty much half Croatian and half Italian, and no other weekend exemplifies that point more than this one. See Aug 15th is a big Croatian holiday, and every year I make the pilgrimage back to Chicago to celebrate with my family. My house is ground zero for my extended family because it's situated along the parade route. Mom puts out an amazing spread of food, and for the next 5 days I eat like a king! The following day is the St Rocco parade, (picture the parade scene in Godfather 2 where Vito shoots Don Fanucci). Unfortunately this year the skies opened up just as the statue of Saint Rocco was right in front of my house, (you can see the guys protecting the statue in the last photo). It really poured! I offered my friend Dino, (who hopped out of the parade route to come over and say hi to my mom and I), safety in my house, but he made a run for the Italian cookie store on the corner where everyone else ducked for cover and no doubt enjoyed a few biscotties in the process (they are amazing!). (I love my niece Lauren's face in that third photo, she was none too pleased to have to wait for the parade to get here) p.s. My friend Frankie said I was slacking in my journal posts, so Frank, this one's for you and Frank Sr. Enjoy!

Cece @ IMG

Where do I begin with this one. . . . . . Cecelia was amazing!!! Even her mom was cool! (she brought me a present to say thank you. . . . . . it made my day!) This was only her third or fourth test and she rocked! She even brought some of her own amazing pieces to wear that she bought from a vintage store in Brooklyn. I can never find anything in those places! Hopefully I'll have a cool editorial to shoot where I can use her before everyone else discovers her. So don't tell anybody about her OK? Good. Now that that's settled, you can find the above images, as well as a few polaroids from the shoot on my website.

She Shines With Her Own Kind Of Light

Rachel is from Kentucky (thus the title), and we had such a great time shooting the other day. It was rather steamy outside, but we did manage to shoot at this little basketball court near my apt. Otherwise, it was an A/C kinda day. After the shoot she wrote me an hilarious story about how she broke her heel down in the East Village and had to decide whether to walk barefoot or don her 4 inch heels as she made her way back home. I hope she wore the heels, sometimes even flip flops around NYC can be sketchy. I remember when I lost a flip down the sewer on the corner of 1st and 1st (the nexus of the universe). I basically hopped around on one leg till a cab stopped for me. . . . Oh and then there was the time I had to walk barefoot through Port Authority. . . . . it's pretty safe to wash your feet with bleach right?

I Know, I Know

I know it's not "cool" to post images of girls smiling. I know everyone is supposed to look depressed and vapid all the time (I think I'm using that word correctly). But sometimes it's fun to show how a simple clothing or hair/make-up change can transform a sweet girl like Melissa, into a total "downtown" rockstar! This was her second shoot ever, and although we made an attempt to shoot outside, I'm pretty sure everyone is in agreement that looking all sweaty is probably always "not cool". So all our best work came indoors with the AC on full blast. Seriously, how cool is her hair?! We tried to convince her that she should wear her hair like that all the time. She pretty much looked at us like we were crazy.