When someone doesn’t get the point!

To film or to photograph, that is the question!

While lately more clients ask me if I can do both the TV and the print, it was not long ago when I was asked if I could do the photos as well as the TV. I guess my career has switched over to be better known for my directing and cinematography than for my photography.

Chinese New Year 2016 NYC

Today in Chinatown NYC there was a celebration of firecrackers. Here are few of the images from it.
Camera: Sony a7sII
Lenses: Canon EF 100-400mm (Metabones adapter) and Zeiss 25/2 Batis

Dogs and Your Depression

This is what happens when I place a cute dog on the table and then he gives me that face… “when am I getting down from here?”

Unconditional Love

It’s all about hope. Give them a home and they will give you Unconditional Love.

Naked Great Barrington

Great Barrington, MA is one of those small towns that you can fall in love with. I did and for the past 20 years or so have been going there with my family. Main street was filled with beautiful Pear Trees that this past year were cut down due to a needed renovation. While the trees were a huge part of the personality of this town, it also covered some of its great buildings. Now that Great Barrington is disrobed of its beautiful flowers and leaves, we can enjoy looking at the great facades found there.

Men’s Fashion 01

Hi everyone, shooting men’s fashion is fun and alluring, a bit easier than women’s in many ways. Through the next few weeks I will be uploading this campaign which will culminate in an elaborate outdoor shoot involving fancy cars, women, cigars and definitely lots of fun!

Insurance Campaign

Running Shoes

Baby Roman

Another beautiful baby shoot!

Baby Shoot

Babies make amazing subjects for photography, specially newborns. I wish I had  more jobs like this one, he was incredibly cute and for only a few hours old, incredibly wide open eyes!

Food Porn

Food is not something I commonly shoot. But through the years have done it many times either for editorial or advertising. The key secret is to have a great food stylist, which yesterday while shooting this I did not have that luxury. So all the fun was in my hands!

The Mysterious Man

Also shot for a book cover submission, a friend came by the studio and I photographed him for this. We added smoke in post to some of the images.

Book Covers

It seems like book cover requests are growing, it was an end of the industry I never paid much attention to.

Niki Larson

So we are an hour away from shooting, it’s a snow blizzard outside. The male model calls and tells me he is stuck in NJ, can’t get to the city. Sh… I have to shoot a couple that morning! Now what?

Alpine Mountain

Love finding great people and places! This winter I found Alpine Mountain (http://alpinemountain.com), a camera friendly place where we were able to capture beautiful parts of Winter Wonderland. The owners and managers were incredibly welcoming and helpful. The atmosphere was very family oriented, an amazing for new skiers!

Videos: 5 minutes of rough footage, lightly edited. And bellow 43 seconds of MOVI M5 with BMPCC pulled by snowmobile!

Portrait of a Protest

On 12-13-14 I witnessed over 20K people take the streets of NYC from Washington Square Park heading north to Herald Square, then back down Broadway to One Police Plaza. The protest named Millions March NYC #MillionsMarchNYC was an extraordinary show of support to those victims of police brutality in the United States. Eric Garner from New York and Michael Brown from Ferguson, Missouri were most predominant in support. But many others were also brought to light.

EmblemHealth Campaign

It was a busy summer…

I was invited to shoot the new EmblemHealth “Legacy of Care” campaign created by Havas WW’s Strat Farm. Three days of running around alongside the TV Commercial crew and mostly shooting with a 400mm lens to maintain distance. The production was so well executed by the agency that we had enough time between shots to be able to create its print end which you now can see on their site and subway ads throughout NYC.

Bunny in the House

So we got Tammy the 5th grade bunny for the weekend! Wow she is cute and cuddly, I think our dog Twigs got a little jealous. Very well mannered and left all pellets within her cage area. And wow that Tammy can eat hay by the pounds, ok a little exaggerated but you get the idea! We will miss you Tammy!

The Piano

I wonder how this piano got here. Was it brought by the photographer doing a shoot here earlier? was it brought by a romantic being to ask for someone’s hand in marriage? the stories told could be many… which one is true?

NYC

I have been living in NYC for over 25 years, I am still amazed about how little I know about it. Today I went to see a location where I am shooting part of a film in June, and once again I got that “wow what an amazing city this is”. The history, the sights, and even those little glimpses like the cross-bridge. I sometimes ask “is this the NYC I live in?”, I need to get out of my neighborhood more often 🙂

Model Snapshots

For a video series I am creating, here are a few snapshots from today’s shoot.

Models: Boss Models NY

Doug Bell – Writer

Thursday morning I sat down to have coffee and meet writer Doug Bell. For what I hear an amazing writer for the pharma industry and for what I experienced a very nice guy. His eyes look like precious stones, crystalline, clear, deep, inspiring! While most of my images will have dodging and burning in the eyes, these are untouched!

Dancers

Great dance performance by Bianca Johnson & Dancers at NDI in Harlem. In between shooting some video for them I took just a few shots, Mike’s lighting was phenomenal so could not resist.

Shot with the Olympus OMD-EM1 before the performance. You can also see a little rough cut of the video further down.

Portrait & Coffee with Karen

Coffee turned into a delightful lunch with Karen yesterday. It’s fun to catch up with old friends. Karen is a NYC personal trainer that Gabrielle and I have been friends with for many years. Her smile and sparkle in her eyes speaks about her personality and lifestyle.

Dillon Gallery

While I went to see a Venezuelan artist by the name of Oswaldo Vigas at the Dillon Gallery in Chelsea, I encountered wonderful friends and met some really beautiful people. Owned by Valerie Dillon and Alvaro Perez Miranda they set the main floor with great paintings from Oswaldo (click here to see), and in the workshop downstairs I loved finding a mixture of aromas, visual inspiration and soothing sounds (click here to see). If you are in NYC right now, I highly recommend you to experience this.

Portraits & Coffee

A portrait of a friend, a family member or a stranger have one thing in common, expression! Each individual relates a story in a specific moment and place. And here is where I want to start “Portraits & Coffee”, ok tea and wine count too, tequila may make me too artsy…

Resting

Resting is the only word I can find to define the beauty in this person’s face. The fabric, the skin, the textures, the barely visible hair.

Photo Editors Welcomed!

Its so hard to decide what image to use sometimes. Photo Editors welcomed! Even when you decide, then comes the treatment, do we darken this or that, contrast vs. clarity… Instagram had it right, click, use someone else’s created filter and upload! Naahh! this is part of the fun of being a photographer!

Bra Fitter and So Much More…

If you walk into her store, most likely you or a loved one was looking for a comforting place where a woman can get the best attention while fitting you for a new bra after breast cancer surgery. Carol Art Keane went through it herself and does understand what these women are going through.

But this blog is not about wigs, implants, bras (well maybe this one) or surgeries. It’s about images and this is the portrait I took of her a few weeks back for their website. She is as beautiful in person as in her image and her personality and soul are reflected through her smile!

As I told her and women in the past and will continue to do so “the beauty of a woman is not in her breasts but in her smile”.

Wynwood Art District

If it wasn’t for the cars, this could be Old Habana, love the mood that it creates.

SOS Venezuela

This weekend all around the world there are protests to support the people of Venezuela to request for it’s president Nicolas Maduro to step down. Students in Venezuela have taken to the streets and while being peaceful encountered Maduro’s unjust regime. Several students have been killed by gun men that support this regime, while the students only had words as their weapons. These are images from today at Union Square, NYC.

Miami Video

In January I spent a few days in Miami with friends and family. As always while walking around I was shooting and here a couple of hours prior to my plane back to NYC I went to meet some friends by South Beach. I took off on my own for about an hour and tested the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera using a Canon EF 100-400mm lens on a monopod. OK this was no easy task, the weight and size of this lens requires a more stabilized rig than a monopod, but I was up for the challenge. Keep in mind that I am not using a camera that allows for the IS function of the lens, IS is not available when shooting from the BMPCC. From the cutest little kid, to surfers, to sea gulls, or for that matter anything in front of me, this camera stood its ground. The tonality range was incredible between deep shadows and bright sun. Now I just need a good colorist to do their magic when using this camera.

Beauty Panics NYC

Sometimes I don’t understand how so many people complain about the beautiful snow, the white on our trees makes the city sparkle.

These are a few pics form yesterday and today.