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
Alexandra the mother goose
a fantastic real estate agent and great human being i've had the pleasure of shooting before
Kara who is a very awesome australian
Han the clumsy adorable crazy girl
Nyde is just plain funny
who is also a very awesome photographer with some very interesting self portraits
Elsa and Carlos Raul, our neighbors are pretty awesome
the redhead and fashionista with awesome tastes
who does some amazing work with the piano, i've featured him before in what is probably my most famous
to date
Carlos, it's his fault im in New york
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