Natasha, NOT Uma Thurman

I think she's the tallest and most IG-famous model I've worked with yet...

It’s a cliché to say to someone that they ought to write a book, so I didn’t say it to Natasha after our shoot today. She should totally write a book, though. Born in Russia but raised in southern Italy, she speaks several languages and has something of a checkered past (and the ill-conceived tattoos to prove it). She fled the coop at 18 and never looked back, a decision that saw her briefly homeless before someone discovered her natural propensity for modeling. Tall, blonde, striking – it was an inevitability, wasn’t it?

She reminded me of someone famous, but it took me a minute to put my finger on it. “Uma Thurman!” I finally realized. She gets this all the time, she says, but to her chagrin, as she doesn’t find Uma particularly pretty. “Ok so you’re like a prettier version of her,” I offer, worried I’ve already managed a faux pas within the first fifteen minutes of meeting her, but it doesn’t sour the mood.

And what a mood it is. This is the second shoot I’ve had here in Milan in two days, and technically at the same studio, but this time at the main location, which has many more shooting spaces and is busy with the sights and sounds of other creatives doing their thing. The hallways are flanked by rolls of seamless paper in every color, rigging contraptions, softboxes, flash units, moveable white and black walls – all things I have no use for as a weirdo obstinately shooting with natural light.

But the studio has got plenty of that, too: three huge windows, northwest-facing, let in all the light I’d need for the day. Imposter syndrome has never struck me harder than in this moment, as I’m in a studio in Milan, surrounded by working industry professionals, staring at a very tall and very well-established (277k followers on IG 😳) model. I don’t feel like I belong here, not even slightly - I am an interloper, a dauber, a dilettante. Doesn’t matter – I grab the camera and go about my business anyway.

Natasha, with all of her experience, was as professional and capable as I expected, but unexpectedly chatty and warm. She was as curious about me as I was about her, and it made transitions between shooting sets quite comfortable and natural. When she mentioned that she’s looking to get an apartment in Rome, I admitted that I don’t really like Milan and would much rather be a bit further south. “Nobody likes Milan,” she declared. “We’re all just here for work!” Good, I’m glad I’m not the only one! Milan is fine – it has all of the default charm that any Italian city has by virtue of being full of Italians, with their countertop espressos and pizza and pasta and gelato, but it has no heart, no soul of its own. There’s money and panache in spades, but a surfeit of tourists and not much of old Mediolanum, the ancient Roman name. “It’s Milan now, actually,” I can almost hear the city say. (Don’t even get me started on Florence.)

Back to Natasha, who wins the award for best presentation for the pre-shoot lingerie show-and-tell. (I told her this, and she curtseyed.) A couple things caught my eye – the sheer tan dress with comically tall boots and the colorful orange and blue number you see here. She suggested the ripped jeans, which she made herself during a train ride. (Great for photos, probably not so great for casual outdoor use.) The studio did a lot of the heavy lifting; the furniture, the textures of the floor and wall, and the huge windows all made it easy to get stunning shots straight out of camera. Three cheers (as usual) for the Glimmerglass filters I started using a few months ago, because they played extremely well with the light and Natasha’s skin. If I have a secret sauce, these filters are an ingredient.

Two hours passed by relatively quickly, as we made good use of what the studio had to offer. Everything looked good next to the window, so I pushed the couch over there, and then the chair, and then just had her stand for some poses as well. It probably goes without saying that she needs very little direction, although she was happy to have it whenever I piped up with an idea. The only out-of-left-field thing I went for was to shoot with the twisted roots prop. I have no idea what it is or why it’s in there, but I put Natasha behind it to see if we could do anything interesting with her peeking through it. It mostly didn’t work, but hey, you never know until you try. (My mantra for this whole enterprise, honestly.)

And so went my time with Natasha, the well-traveled and world-famous leggy lady from Russia but also Italy and parts in between. Will I ever feel like this is my job? Like I belong in these spaces, doing these things? Maybe it’s too early to say, but I’m enjoying the experience. Thanks for reading.

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