I'm back!

Sorry, my computer broke and I just got around to getting it fixed.

So, where to begin. I went to Los Angeles last month to shoot that story for Italian Vogue. It was without doubt the most amazing experience I have had yet. The flight to LA on that Wednesday morning was probably the most miserable flight I've ever taken. Non-reclining seat in the last row. Crying baby in front of me, lavatory behind. Oh the glamorous life of a model.

Once in Cali, I took a shuttle van to the hotel where I stayed, the Hollywood Standard Hotel. Check out this celeb in his shades!

The hotel has a really cool mid-century modern design. Here's a photo of the lobby.

There was one other guy model who flew in from New York, Matt, who is also with Fusion. We shared a room to keep the costs down, as we were not paid very much for this job. After we got everything squared away in the room we went down to have dinner poolside, which we did every night we were there.

We wore our trunks down with the intention of swimming, but after the sun went down during dinner the air got too cold. Trust me, I jumped in anyway and froze! I said, "I didn't come all the way to California to NOT swim in the pool", then proceded to swim for three minutes, followed by a quick walk upstairs for warmer clothes.

Both Thurday and Friday morning we were picked up in a van to take us to the set at 5:45am. On the first day I was very excited, despite the early hour. As evidenced by this photo as we waited for the van to arrive:

(Yes, the hanging bubble chairs were fun)

So, the van pulld up and as I opened the door to the van to find one the most beautiful girls I have ever seen inside to greet us. As we started moving toward the set, she introduces herself to us. Of course she is the supermodel who the shoot is about. Her name is Rianne and she is Dutch, but lives in New York. Not only stunningly beautiful, but also very sweet and intelligent. No, unfortunately she was not interested in me! At one point in the shoot though she said, "Nathan, I don't think I've ever seen a boy as skinny as you." Not sure if that counts for anything. Back to the story.

We pull up to this newly-constructed high school where the shoot will take place. The concept of the shoot is a quarantined area with some deadly disease which Rianne is impervious to because she is so mind-blowingly beautiful. We, the 5 skinny boys, of course are all sick or dying from this. The school is all steel and concrete and glass. Very sterile, as any quarantined area should be. Biohazard!

(very cool architecture!)

We walked into the cafeteria, where we would wait between photo sessions. Also where the catering was. The three of us were joined by the other three boy models, all from the LA area. The stylists were there already unpacking racks and racks of clothes, at least six tables of shoes and four tables of accessories. This photo contains just a portion of the clothes they brought.

We grabbed a little breakfast and started fitting the clothes. While we were trying things, in walks Steven Meisel. He came and introduced himself to us (I was a bit starstruck, not going to lie) and left us to get dressed in our first look.

We wore the most amazing clothes! Think of a designer there was something there for us to wear. Dior, Prada, Roberto Cavalli, Raf Simons, Balenciaga, Jil Sander, Rick Owens, Ann Demeulemeester, etc. Rianne was in very 80's inspired clothes with strong shoulders and lots of gold jewelry, while the guys were in either all black or all white ensembles. We each had a hood over our heads, then a scarf wrapped over our noses/mouths. Think somewhere between ninja and arabian knight. We also wore a lot of gas masks as you might imagine one would in a quarantined area.

For each shot Steven would start with Rianne and maybe one or two guys, then add more guys in the shot if he felt he needed more. The first few shots used all of the guys, but especially the second day he used two or three guys per shot for most of the day. One of the guys from LA and I realized that the two of us were in every shot, and that we were requested on set first. I guess we were doing something right!

We had shots inside, outside, in the grass, by the pool, IN the pool (have you tried diving into a pool wearing Dior?) There were about twelve different areas of the school we used. Sidenote: I have no idea how the final shot will come out, but I am one of the extras on the cover. Hopefully you can see me!

So after two 12 hour days of shooting, we got back to the hotel with just enough time to get a few hours of sleep before heading to the airport to fly back to New York on Saturday morning.

I got back and switched from model-mode to broker-mode and began focusing on renting apartments. Recently I've been doing a lot of business in the Financial District, so I'm pretty much exclusively advertising there. It's an area that has really good deals, and not a lot of brokers are working there right now. I'm submitting another application for an apartment there tomorrow!

I've worked two more jobs since I got back to the city. About three weeks ago I shot a look-book for Uniqlo's Jil Sander diffusion line, which you wouldn't ever see, but it paid really well.

Two days ago I shot a couple pages and video for Soma magazine. The magazine is running a profile on German-American designer, Robert Geller. They had me dressed in his fall/winter 09-10 clothes and there were photos of us together in his showroom and outside on the street. On the block where his showroom is in Tribeca Julia Roberts was filming some movie and the street was all blocked off and full of set equipment. As we were leaving the showroom to take some photos along a brick wall at the end of the street, we took some really cool photos using the movie set as a background. I guess it was the right place at the right time. We finished shooting on the sidewalk and went back to the showroom to get our things and go home. Robert had popsicles in the freezer which were exactly what we needed, shooting outside in the hot August sun. Especially me, in my three layers of winter clothes and hat.

So that's about where I am now. I've been to two fashion week castins so far, and I'm sure there are more in the coming week or two. Fashion week is the second week of September and I'm hoping I book a few more shows than last season. We'll see what happens.

Long post! Thanks for sticking it out!