Test Shoot with Julia N
Jersey City & New York CityMeet yoga instructor Julia. She had found my work and reached out to say it was pulling her back toward modeling, a part of her life she had temporarily set aside when she and her husband started a family. By the time we connected, her childern were starting pre-K. She made some time to start modeling again.
By this 2018 test shoot we had already worked togther a couple of time. To keep some creative momentum we met on the roof of her apartment building in Jersey City. The light was even and soft. Mid week, midday, mid Spring, we had the rooftop and the Manhattan skyline to ourselves. She pulled clothes from her own wardrobe. No stylist, no crew. We looked at what she had brought and figured out the order from there. Five looks across the open deck and the rooftop lounge, working until we had what we needed.
Life does what life does so we did not work together again until a year later. The 2019 shoot was in Manhattan, where she had moved. We worked through the afternoon on the Upper East Side, finding locations as we went: a park with a granite monument, a wrought iron gate on a brownstone block, iron exterior stairs, a stretch of open avenue. Midway through, we paused to pick up her daughter from an after-school activity and kept shooting while she was in class. When the hour was up we collected her, met a friend of Julia's, and ended the afternoon over pizza. Her husband joined us before we finished.
The wardrobe across both shoots reflects exactly how this kind of collaboration works. A black bandage mermaid gown paired with a layered baroque pearl pendant necklace. A blush feather-fringe jacket and matching mini skirt over a ribbed lace-hem crop top. An emerald green sequin long-sleeve mini dress worn on a brownstone block in afternoon light. A leopard print batwing silk mini with a black bead choker, shot against the limestone face of an Upper East Side building. The clothes came from her closet. The edit was hers. The eye was already there.