Test Shoot with Satine
Battery ParkSatine and I found each other on a platform for models and photographers, early enough in both our careers that neither of us had much of a record to show. We did not work together at that point. A few years later, we decided to do a test shoot. I had recently finished a lookbook for designer Minika Ko. I loved her designs so much that I wanted to keep photographing the pieces. I reached out to Satine, confirmed her sizes, pulled wardrobe from Minika Ko's studio, and took a car to the southern tip of Manhattan.
It was a hot day. We moved through Battery Park and the streets around it looking for backgrounds: architecture to shoot against, surfaces and structures she could interact with. Satine understood direction the way good models do, as geometry. If I needed her to move left or stand taller or drop lower, she understood that her position in the frame is a design decision, not a performance note. When she needed clarification she would repeat the direction back while moving into it, and more than once arrived at something more specific than what I had asked for.
The wardrobe came from Minika Ko's collection. Because I had just shot the lookbook, I knew exactly how each piece was supposed to fit and where it was supposed to sit on a body. Satine handled her own hair and makeup, and she gave practical feedback about the clothes that only someone wearing them could give. That kind of exchange, specific and useful and offered without hesitation, makes a shoot run cleaner than any amount of extra crew.
Four looks across the afternoon. A black zip-front structured crop top with high-waist leggings featuring sheer mesh panel inserts and a reflective stripe. A black cap-sleeve crop top with wide-leg pleated palazzo pants and a wide waistband, shot along the waterfront railing with the harbor and the Statue of Liberty behind her. The same crop top paired with a charcoal grey A-line midi skirt with a sheer hip panel, shot against a polished granite wall. Last, a black strapless bandeau top with a black satin fitted midi skirt, wide waistband, sheer mesh hip panel, and a front slit, on the Lower Manhattan street and the Battery Park esplanade with One World Trade Center rising behind her.
The city was a working background throughout. The Oculus, the piers, the cobblestones, the skyline. None of it dressed up or cleared out. Just New York on a hot afternoon, and two people finding the frames inside it.