FELINO

I am a NYC photographer and art director with almost ten years in the fashion industry. I will be in Miami Beach through mid February, working on my "Simple Beauty" portrait series. Please see my Casting Call for more information on this art project.

I have worked with over forty models here on MM. Feel free to contact me for a full list of models and references.

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"Art is art. Everything else is everything else." -Ad Reinhardt

"I've always tried to do pictures that don't date. I always go for simplicity." -David Bailey

"Casting is everything. It's about just making a connection -- that's what I rely on more. Especially with fashion, with models, well some of them are just so young they don't have anything to say. If they're used to being posed it's really hard for me because I don't do that. It's all about this connection with people." -Terry Richardson

"Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.” -Jim Jarmusch

“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.” -Chuck Close

"Remember, just take pictures. Let your camera guide you. Try not to overthink photography. The best work will come from the gut." –Matthew Baum