Brooklyn Baby. When the agency sent over the package of models to choose from, Allie was one of my immediate yesses; sixteen, freckled, and innocence personified. By sheer coincidence, on the flight up to NY, Lana Del Ray’s “Brooklyn Baby” was actually on shuffle in my ear when I was going through the selects, and even though Allie hails from Boston, the sentiment and happenstance seemed to want to paint its own picture with her.

Just from the initial conversation with her you could immediately tell she possessed this sort-of soft, genteel charm & joyfulness that I think shows in a lot of the shots.

She came up the stairs to the apartment in Brooklyn with her mother and the model’s typical shoulder bag stuffed with outfits, excitement, and fatigue. Just from the initial conversation with her you could immediately tell she possessed this sort-of soft, genteel charm & joyfulness that I think shows in a lot of the shots. Seemingly in spite of her mature demeanor (or perhaps as a direct result of it) her stare can easily go from surprisingly serious and intense to something between unintentionally seductive and harmlessly playful from frame to frame; but I guess that’s her job—and her age.

It was refreshing seeing a kid not being persistently tethered to the social network via her phone as so often happens and she just wound up seamlessly blending into the place as if she’d been there the whole time. So on the vibe of the same song I tried making it look as if she were literally at home just doing what I imagined she’d be doing, rather than simply shooting her as just another visitor posing in a disinterested, superficial environment. There was one particular shot looking in through the window on the fire escape that seemed to capture the most poignant moment with her: there was a bunch of old roses drying out upside down on the inside of the window, and in the framing it actually looked as if she were wearing them on her head. I asked her to look over her shoulder directly at me as if the camera wasn’t there, and when I saw her gaze I kind of just looked at her and felt like, “yeah—I know you”.