[BTS] Foggy Nights

This is a series where I post one image at a time, and share a story “Behind The Shot”, that could be something technical, a challenge, or just an anecdote from the day of. Feel free to explore past entries by clicking here.

This is one of those cases where we have a picture in our minds and have to wait for the perfect conditions to get it. I’ve always been obsessed with looking at photographs of NYC covered in fog, specifically the bridges, which are by far some of my favorite subjects to shoot in the city. It all happened back in 2018, on a foggy night just before summer started. The forecast was predicting another foggy night and I decided that was finally going to be the day where I’d be able to shoot the world-famous Brooklyn Bridge, at night, covered in the fog. I grabbed my trusty camera, a tripod, and biked down to the bridge as quickly as I could. This is one of the few angles I’ve tried and probably one of my favorite photographs I’ve ever taken of the bridge!

For the fellow Photography enthusiasts out there, here’s the equipment and settings used for this shot:

Fujifilm X-T2 + Fujinon 16-55mm 2.8 • 1s f/4.5 ISO 100

This is one of 10 photographs currently available at my print shot, in case you’re interested:

Just click here to see more details.

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[BTS] One World Framed

This is a series where I post one image at a time, and share a story “Behind The Shot”, that could be something technical, a challenge, or just an anecdote from the day of. Feel free to explore past entries by clicking here.

When visiting DUMBO, in NYC, 11 out of 10 people like to stop at Washington Street to photograph the classic view of the Empire State Building framed underneath the Manhattan Bridge, even if more than half of those same people don’t even realize that. They are probably just looking to get the bridge in the background. But one day, a few years ago, while walking near the bridge more towards the water, I realized that by looking at the other side, I could actually frame the World Trade Center right underneath the bridge instead, running away from the cliche (that I’m also guilty from, of course) and creating an equally interesting image, if not even more. What do you think?

For the fellow Photography enthusiasts out there, here’s the equipment and settings used for this shot:

Fujifilm X-T2 + Fujinon 16-55mm 2.8 • 1/500 f/6 ISO 500

This is one of 10 photographs currently available at my print shot, in case you’re interested:

Click here to see more details.

Song Exploder and the Magic Behind The Scenes

Over the last decade working as a freelance photographer, one of my favorite things to shoot was the behind the scenes of creative people working on their medium. From musicians to architects, to filmmakers, I’m always fascinated by their thought processes and love witnessing art being created right there in front of me. As much as I enjoy photographing many other things, that was always a sweet spot for me.

Mars Motel @ Virtue and Vice Studios | 2018 | © Leo Mascaro

Mars Motel @ Virtue and Vice Studios | 2018 | © Leo Mascaro

 

With that in mind, it’s easy to understand why Song Exploder was meant to become one of the most inspiring things I would watch this year. Song Exploder (the Netflix show) is based on the Podcast of the same name with the premise of “A podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.” — I think you know where this is going, right?

 
 

After having listened to a lot of episodes and binge-watching the first season of the tv show, it’s pretty obvious to me that they both act as perfect companions, in the sense that it’s impossible to choose one format over the other. The beauty of the podcast is relying on your ears to put all the pieces together and imagine the whole situation in front of you. At the same time, the advantage of the tv show is being able to see everything that they’re talking about translated into (incredibly produced) imagery. At the end of each episode (in both formats) the song is played in its full version for the first time and, like magic, it’s like you can finally connect all the pieces and from that moment on, you will never listen to that song the same way anymore. And while in the podcast you get to close your eyes and pay full attention to the song, in the tv show we are gifted with an incredible visual experience (unique to each episode) of the song and lyrics, like this one from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Wait for It”:

 

This is an excerpt from the Netflix show "Song Exploder" in which the musicians talk about the certain songs, and how it came about. In this episode Lin-Manuel Miranda talks about the song "Wait for it" from the smash hit musical "Hamilton". and this animation plays in the end with the entire song. Executive Producers: Hrishikesh Hirway, Morgan Neville Executive Producer: Caitrin Rogers Co-Executive Producer: Dominic Musacchio Editor: Lee Rosch Post Producer: Will Mavronicolas Assistant Editors: Richard Andrews Madison Cazares Production Co: Tremolo Productions My role was to create the animation segments for the Li-Manuel Miranda's episode for "Song Exploder"

[BTS] Snowed Under

Starting a new series today where I’ll be posting one image at a time, and sharing a story “Behind The Shot”, that could be something technical, a challenge, or just an anecdote from the day of. Feel free to explore past entries by clicking here.

I’ve always been fascinated by New York City photographs during a snowstorm, but even though I’ve been living here for 7 years, it was only a couple of years ago that I started to venture myself out with my camera during snowstorms. For this particular shot, I found myself walking around DUMBO (in Brooklyn), and decided to try one of my favorite points of view completely covered in snow, and I couldn’t be happier with what I’ve got. This is looking under the Manhattan Bridge from the Brooklyn side. I rarely process my photographs in black and white, but there’s just something about it that makes it so timeless. You really can’t go wrong with that!

For the fellow Photography enthusiasts out there, here’s the equipment and settings used for this shot:

Fujifilm X-T2 + Fujinon 16-55mm 2.8 • 1/400 f/6.4 ISO 400

This is one of 10 photographs currently available at my print shot, in case you’re interested:

Just click here to see more details.