'I remember my very first photo shoot with Wes and Alex very clearly! It was more than 1 year ago and I was very excited about it! I always liked to be in front of a camera and create art with just my body.'
It wasn't Luca's first time modeling, with his ballet skills he'd posed many time for dance commercial shots. Luca says that going into his work with Wes, he wasn't nervous at all, but confident in himself and his ability to create beautiful lines and movement in front of the camera. Luca shares that even with his dance background, staying in the same pose for long periods of time can be hard on the muscles and bones. Although he is in great shape (he had come to the shoot straight from a ballet rehearsal) Luca shares that he was still quite sore the next day.
'I had no idea how the pictures I shot could look like ! But I was pretty positive about it thanks to Wes and Alex's suggestions that helped me to find the perfect pose to shoot! I remember every shape of my body had to be in the perfect angle! And I had to pay a lot of attention to my eyes, the expression of my face and mouth!'
Luca remembers Wes telling him to smile and 'be sexy with his eyes'. Luca was striving to look more natural and rested and not tired after 6 hours of dance rehearsals he had just been through. Most models that I profile have a gym routine, an hour or two at the the gym 5 or 6 days a week to maintain and define their muscles and look. Luca's body is so long, and so lean and his poses so elegant, even delicate at times. It is easy when enjoying his images to overlook the incredible discipline and time spent working and stretching every muscle in his body on the dance floor so many hours every week.
'The whole experience was positive! When I first looked at the final pics I was literally surprised how my body and my face looked! Every pic meant something and it was pure art! The light was perfectly matching with every pose and the expression of my eyes and mouth were bringing the pics alive! Wes and Alex are great people to work with and I felt immediately comfy which helped a lot to relax and shoot great pics naked or not! The photo shoot was very long as I had expected. It was tiring but full of fun! I shot other two times after with Wes and Alex and every time I felt even more professional and confident with the camera! Loving the modeling world even more!'
by Wes, New Manhattan Studios
'Luca is one of several international models that we have worked with. He is more unique in that he is only one of three professional dancers that have come before the cameras at New Manhattan Studios.'
'At twenty years old, Luca is a professional ballet dancer with an Italian dance troop with a permanent base in New York City. However, Luca’s visa was expiring less than a week after our photo session. We scrambled to get him into the studio and just days after our session he was on a plane bound for Milan.'
'Working with Luca was a special delight; professional dancers of this caliber are athletes of the first degree. But beyond their amazing physiques, they also possess an agile mastery of their body that is unmatched by virtually any other model. In motion, Luca was fluid beauty, but even standing still, Luca radiated an elegant grace that shines through in the photographs.'
'Upon arriving back in New York in the fall, we wasted no time in scheduling a second session with him. In mid-October we captured the series of graceful ballet poses and leaps. The astute observer should be able to detect a slight maturation that is evident in some of the pictures. Luca looks a little less like the boy of 20 that he was when he first arrived at New Manhattan Studios. But if anything, the elegance and poise that he radiates is more obvious than ever.'
(photo shoots, blog & video)
