Sundays at the Gansevoort with the Officially Hard Crew

This is how I spent my weekends in the summer of 2012

GLaDOS Cosplay

Back in October 2011 I was in the New York Comic Con, camera in hand and taking some portraits of pretty awesome costumed people. It was during this event that I saw a very impressive GLaDOS costume created and worn by a young girl named Brittany.

Sometime after the Comic Con, we planned a proper photo-shoot for the character, an opportunity to use the underground tunnels available to use that went perfectly with the character. Seeing Brittany out of character was a surprise, as she seemed like a shy geeky cheerful girl who became the avatar of the calmly menacing and graceful GLaDOS.

It was one of my smoother shoots and a great pleasure working with Ms. Brittany and I look forward to seeing her again in the future. 

Model: http://britthebadger.wordpress.com/

A thank you to the people that have been part of my life in my first year of New York

It's been one year since I sold everything I had and ran from Puerto Rico to start a new life. 

Like many life altering events, the seeds for change were being planted some time before. Trying to make a living as a photographer left me on the receiving end of daily bank calls and weight gain fueled by depression. Once the opportunity for change appeared, I jumped on it without any idea of what to expect. One week later I was in New York, getting ready to sleep in couches while I would settle in.

My first days in the city were hard, the bitter cold was something completely new to me, at first glance the city seemed pretty horrible with a lot of cranky people in every turn. I couldn't believe I left my sunny island for this.

Slowly but surely everything started becoming amazing. My bills were becoming a more manageable and smaller monster, I moved to downtown Manhattan to a very nice tiny apartment and summer was arriving bringing the warmth of the sun and with it new experiences in the city.

Old friends were relegated to wonderful memories while family visits became a quarterly thing. New friends arrived with incredible drive and enthusiasm that inspired me in many ways. A new family was and still is being formed in our little town of Financial District. 

These people have helped shaped my view of the city, each one has added a little of their influence and taste to my life and made me a more grateful person and inspired person because of it.

As a form of gratitude I invited many of the people I’ve met for a few fun very enjoyable portrait sessions. While these are only a few of the people that have been a part of my life, I’m happy to share their portraits. Here are the results of our experiment:

This is Ian, easy with his smiles and a kickass artist, check out his work at

ianrios.com

Alexandra the mother goose

Luis 

 a fantastic real estate agent and great human being i've had the pleasure of shooting before

Kara who is a very awesome australian 

model

Han the clumsy adorable crazy girl

Nyde is just plain funny

Monica Felix

 who is also a very awesome photographer with some very interesting self portraits

Elsa and Carlos Raul, our neighbors are pretty awesome

Marieli

 the redhead and fashionista with awesome tastes

Colin Huggins

 who does some amazing work with the piano, i've featured him before in what is probably my most famous

blog post

to date

Carlos, it's his fault im in New york

Marien

- My favorite Yoga instructor and a long time friend, i've featured her in a very special blog post

here

Arnaldo 

 another very cool event photographer and an all around awesome geek

last and most importantly Camille, my girlfriend who just recently moved to New York and im extremely happy to have by my side

Senen Does Writing: Mornings with Marien

It starts like many ideas usually do; a spur of the moment, inspired by the motivation to create something that will be memorable long after its time has passed. The day was December 30, 2005 and we were celebrating Marién's move to New York. I met Marién earlier that year at a friend's gathering, a dancer and Yoga student; she was drawn to my passion in learning photography and was willing to pose patiently as I fumbled with my recently acquired camera learning how to pose people. Over the year we became very good friends and her eager smiles and positive attitude became a very welcome sight.

That night we celebrated new beginnings with old friends in a restaurant located in old San Juan called “Ostra Cosa”, as we were leaving the restaurant I pitched the idea to her;” Let's stay and take photos of the last sunrise of the year, frame the end of one moment as a new phase in life starts". Marién, being the positive and eager soul loved the idea, so we hurried on to "El Morro" to greet the sunrise with camera in hand.

It seemed like a great idea at the time, a nice symbolic way to greet the New Year, at the moment I had no idea that this would become tradition for us.

The next year turned out to be a perfect lesson in being prepared. Marién was back in Puerto Rico and we got together planning to repeat this. We decided on shooting at her apartment's rooftop in Carolina, the urban landscape giving us a nice contrast to a warm rising sun. Sadly, our plans were turned to mud as the rain had other plans.

So there we were sitting in my car frustrated beyond belief with a nonstop torrent of rain washing around us. It’s a shame my younger self still hadn’t learned a lesson in perseverance that great photography would require. We didn't shoot anything, just took a few frustrated snaps on the car and went to our respective homes.

In hindsight it’s easy to see how we could’ve gotten a few umbrellas to shoot in the rain as we adapted to the situation. In the future things would go differently; rain should’ve been a reason to adapt instead of give up. It was a lesson that only time could teach.

2007 made it impossible for us to take our photo, but we came back with a vengeance for 2008. Marién was now a Yoga teacher and I had was more proficient on the use of flashes, we retook our idea deciding on a rooftop shot at my parents' home in Dorado.

This photo reminds me how patient my parents were with my wacky behavior. Here I was at 4am setting up staircases and walking along the roof of the house with a girl they barely know in order to take a simple photo. I still wonder what was going through their brains.

The years had also given us both more knowledge in our respective areas. Marién was more impressive than ever, showing not only grace and agility but also greater endurance in retaining postures. I had gotten better at using flashes and learning to play with umbrella.

Needless to say we were both very pleased with the results.

As it happens with many things in life, time will make people slowly drift apart, our different responsibilities and goals meant that by the end of 2009 we had barely communicated for most of the year. When I finally gave her a call, it was like we hadn't spoken for just a day, our sunrise project would continue and we were back in planning to make we created something memorable.

This time, we decided on the botanical garden located in Rio Piedras, a lovely and relaxing place where many people go to walk or meditate. We arrived very early when everything was still completely dark; this gave us some time to catch up while we drove around looking for a suitable shooting spot. The security noticed us from the moment I opened one of the umbrellas, they warned us against doing professional shooting without permits, however they didn’t push the issue and allowed us to continue to a nearby spot.

Once we reached our destination, the rain began showering us, first gently and then furiously as it began to lose patience over our insistence to finish our shoot no matter the conditions. We continued shooting using some leaves to save the flashes from dying and doing our best to hurry. When we finished shooting, we quickly stashed the gear in the bags and hiked back to the car, feeling like little kids with the satisfaction of knowing we had taken great photos as we walked while being drenched in the rain.

2010 was the year of the unexpected. Changes coming at the most casual of moments, like lightning striking when you least expect it, these changes forcing me to rethink priorities and making me wonder how far ahead could I really plan my life, it was a volatile time in my life that would bring about even more change in 2011.

As before we didn't have much communication until the end of the year when tradition screamed at us to get together and continue with our project. This time our location would be a natural reserve called Tortuguero lagoon, a serene place that served as a great backdrop for our newest photo. Having such great chemistry with Marién, we arrived, shot and left in less than 30 minutes. We both knew what we were looking for, a peaceful relaxing photo with water elements covering the bottom of our frame.

Besides this shot, I was also concentrating on recording the lasts days of the year with the hope of telling a story in a simple and short format. You can see a little of our shoot by 1:40 of this video.

Many of the changes 2011 brought were the result of events that happened late 2010. The biggest being my move from Puerto Rico to New York, separating myself from everyone I ever cared about in the hopes of finding a better life.

With this change in life and 1600 mile standing between us, completing this year's project would require a bit more planning than in previous times. We had hoped to do it as before, but sadly with plane tickets for the new year were prohibitively expensive so our shoot would to be postponed until early January when travel became more reasonable. With a little bit of luck, we locked the date and prepared for another early morning shoot.

It was the perfect year to go back to our first location, "El Morro" in Old San Juan. It seems ironic now, when we started our project, it was a celebration of Marién's new life in New York, now years later we celebrated my all too brief return to Puerto Rico .It was also the first time we had help on our shoot, as my girlfriend brought her trademark humor with us.

After we were done, we stopped by "La bombonera" for some very tasty breakfast and reminiscenced over previous years, the good times and the bad. As we were about to leave we realized, until we had done this shoot we didn't feel like the year had ended properly, it was a good feeling.

Winter is finally here in NYC

As of yesterday I was prepared for a very exciting day of laundry and editing, until the weather decided I should change plans.

This is officially the first Snow of the year, and my first time seeing a real snowstorm. Laundry and projects would have to be put on hold for a few more hours while I put my photojournalist hat on.

Knowing there was no way I could change lenses, I took with me my Sony NEX-5N  with the 16mm as my wide angle camera and my trusty Nikon D7000  with the 70-200mm  as my long range lens. You can see in my photo how much im looking forward to freezing my ass off.

From Wall Street to Seaport it was serene,a blanket of silence calming the few people (AND DOGS) that remained on the street
  
There is nothing cuter than dogs in boots.


This man sat motionless unprotected from the elements almost like a statue, or a corpse. Time to leave Wallst

After Wallst, i hit 59st hoping to see Central Park, the wind was very bitter here.


  


Birdie had no fear, standing in the middle of the street. No fucks were given. 

Finally reaching Central Park, the mood changed, instead of serene and sober, the park was full of emotions. The people were more colorful, smiles were more abundant and the sights were amazing.

 I was greeted by a couple embracing each other in a very passionate kiss.
 

I have nothing but admiration and respect for the amount of dedication it takes to run under these conditions.
   
 
Casualty of the cold
 
This little fella was trying it's best to capture a squirrel that was making fun of him from the tree

     

Most of the lake near the Bethesda Terra was frozen
 Very tired, but happy, at this point I could barely feel my fingers when shooting and it was time to go back. 
  
This gorgeous husky was outside a nearby store staring calmy as I left.

the rest of the photos are located in my flickr gallery

First Winter of New York 2012, a set on Flickr.

Hope you enjoyed the photos. As always, let me know what you think in the comments.

FACES OF NEW YORK COMIC CON 2011 - Sunday

note: Saturday version of the portraits can be found here

Once again I got my trusty camera and octagon and went against the masses at thew New York Comic Con 2011 for another round of awesome phortraits. 

Major props to my friend Ian Rios (awesome painter) who helped me with the lighting yesterday and today, he is a much a part of the results of the photos as I am.

Enjoy! 

That was her expression after seeing the light coming from the softbox

This guy never once broke character, he was showcasing makeup from Amy L Forsythe

Bonus - Matthew Innman the creator of one of the funniest websites I know theoatmeal.com

It's Lolana Suicide <3 Suicide Girls

I've had plenty of people asking me about my setup, so here it is

Color coordinated octagon and jacket, and one very nice 70-200 lens

Faces of New York Comic Con 2011 - Saturday

edit: Sunday edition is now up! watch it here

After receiving so much positive feedback from my "Faces of Occupy Wall St" post, I decided to do something entirely different using the same format. Separating the cosplayer from the busy background of the Comic Convention and giving them a full frame to show their stuff. Here are the people I met from the New York Comic Con 2011.

I'll be back tomorrow for more pictures, look for me.

Enjoy.

This was by far my favorite costume of the night, a personification of Glados with her doing some very cool improvisations, I was amazed.

Faces of OccupyWallst

"Occupy Wall Street" is a protest which began in New York and is now spreading across America. Many people are wondering who these protesters are, so I decided to document the people supporting the movement. 

 Some of the people photographed here have been in Zuccoti Park since the first week of the occupation, others are just visitors drawn to see the community that has been created in support of this movement.

Rather than go and snap some ordinary pics, I took along a huge 5ft diameter light box to capture isolated portraits of the people participating. 

These are the people I met:

Enjoy.

 

 

Some technical details;

For this I had a friend helping me using a 5 feet octabox with a a grid, it provided with a truly beautiful light that highlighted their eyes in a wonderful way. It was quite challenging shooting in that space with a 70-200 and so many people walking around the camp, but the end effect was worth it. All photos were taken October 7 10:30 pm - 11:30pm

Holly

Another one of the very amazing people I'm meeting in New York, Holly comes from Australia and lives in London. I was amazed by her enthusiasm and great humor, it made shooting her a delight.

Holly wasn't real comfortable with doing posed photos, but as soon as she started doing her own thing, singing and joking around the photos gained a new life.

It was a pleasure taking photos of Holly, I hope to see her singing in the big time in the coming future.

Another Saturday in New York, Dumbo arts festival

I feel this is starting to become a trend, im not doing as many creative/commercial shots as before, so my posts are becoming more anecdotal and personal.With this in mind I'll relate some highlights of saturday september 24 where me and some friends both new and old visited Dumbo Arts Festival in Brooklyn.

when we first arrived at Brooklyn, the streets were pretty full of people visiting the festival all around the streets and in the museums.

As we entered the gallery I captured this funny door sign

Out of respect of the artists I didn't take pictures of the paintings, but of course that didn't stop me from taking photos of people in our group.

this is Joanne who we just met a few hours before looking as pretty as a doll while taking a photo

We did a lot of walking around on the streets, this is how our small entourage looked from my perspective

some random distracted girl texting nonstop.

Ok maybe no so random, that was Zelis whom I was presented too just a few hours before. She make some awesome leggings and blogs a bit at http://trendylovestyle.blogspot.com/and she also happens to look pretty funny behind a proyector screen with her umbrella.

Ian found quiet spot to do some levitation reading

Before continuing we stopped a while near the Brooklyn bridge

As part of the trip we also met Rafi Mercado, owner of the just released page http://www.noshowlikehome.com/

There were a few cargo containers which also contained exhibits, these usually were for smaller works and they made for a very interesting stop

We reached the area under the bridge where we saw a guy that had the most amazing hair ever. Sorry for the horrible quality, the bridge was beyond dark and I was bouncing the flash to a ridiculous distance

Now the show under the bridge is something that has to be experienced to really know how amazing it looks. The lights are mapped to the shape of the bridge, so you get a really trippy effect when it moves around. It was quite enjoyable.

I've added a video so you can have an idea how it looked

Saw another funny message when I was at the ATM

After leaving DUMBO I met my friend Karlo who had just arrived to NY and we proceeded to stop by Union Square while we waited for the rest of the people. For those that don't know, Union Square is filled with the most random of personalities all the time.

some kids playing around with glowy fingers.

dirty blonde woman who seemed to be having a bad day, kept texting for a long time.

Finally the rest of the group arrived and we went to a party located in a photo studio. Here is Cristian making everyone else look bad.

Inside it was just extremely hot, so I didn't stay very long, however I did get a few shots of Kiani, another person I had just met, doing some really awesome dancing for the crowd.

This is someone who I look forward to taking pictures in the near future

More to come!