Smoking Break: Fashion Photography in NoLita, NYC
Bright red lipstick and a pack of cigarettes serve as inspiration on a spring afternoon in Manhattan.
The photos in this set feature a fashionable medical professional I’ve photographed many times. She’s one of my favorite New York-based collaborators.
Taken during an April afternoon meetup in 2019, this series features Fatma, a stylish and lively subject I’ve known for years. Hailing from Kuwait City, she moved to the US to attend university in Buffalo. Upon graduation, Fatma relocated to New York and has lived in the city ever since.
We connected via Instragram in 2015 when I was searching for a unique face to feature in an article for Dauphine Magazine. We ended up collaborating on a memorable piece about her life in the New York and always challenging fashions.
These photos were taken after a coffee and chat at citizenM New York Bowery hotel. During our conversation, inspiration struck as I was distracted by the contrast between her sunglasses and striking red lipstick. We headed over to a bright red wall on nearby Kenmare St. in NoLita to snap a few photos of her talking and smoking against the vibrant backdrop.
The direction for these photos: smoke and talk. As she updated me on her life, I captured candid frames of her facial expressions and hand movements which became more striking and cinematic due to the proximity of the red wall and Nom Wah’s seasonal red entrance.
This particular set of nine photos are my favorites from that day. Fatma is in the midst of talking and smoking, emitting a range of emotions and movements with every utterance. Those fleeting moments — quicksilver — are the ones I love to preserve in photographs.
The Ballerina and the City
A photogenic ballerina with classic Hollywood looks, long limbs, exceptional posing skills and an incredible personality, Hannah Kickert is one of my favorite subjects.
The photos in this series were taken from 2017-2019. They feature Vienna-based, part-time NYC resident, Hannah Kickert. A photogenic ballerina with classic Hollywood looks, exceptional posing skills and an incredible personality, Kickert is one of my favorite subjects.
We met in 2017 at a Runstreet Art Run in the East Village. I photographed Kickert jumping against a Hektad mural in the First Street Green Cultural Park. The photo went on to become one of my most popular shots.
In spring 2018, I worked with Hannah on a promotional photoshoot for the Runstreet Daydream 5K Art Run and Festival. She performed several jumps while wearing a full costume. Hannah was featured on the primary posters for the event.
Hannah contacted me in the summer of 2018 to schedule a fashion photoshoot before she returned to Vienna.
I recommended shooting in Chinatown and Soho, the same locations for the Karolina Finksas series, as I wanted to see the contrast between two dancers — with distinct performing styles, hair colors and body types — and their respective approaches to the settings.
My favorites from the Chinatown portion of the shoot are these four consecutive frames taken on historic Doyers Street.
We walked over to the relatively quieter streets of Soho to take street-style portraits. Hannah swapped out her jeans for cropped shorts.
We collaborated again in spring 2019 upon Hannah’s return to New York. The photos were captured a few hours before she flew back to Vienna.
I took several shots of her in subway stations and on the streets of Lower Manhattan. But my favorite photos are of Hannah at the red wall in NoLita and her smiling in Central Park.
After wrapping up in Central Park, we walked over to the Upper East Side. Before we parted company, Hannah taught me how to properly pronounce two of her famous countrymen’s names: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominic Thiem.