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Professional Photographer, Looking To Create NEW Editorial and Commercial Content & Advertising Marketing Art For A Wide Range Of Fashion, Culinary, Lifestyle, Travel, Magazine, Product Related Businesses and More >>> www.GreggCestaro.com

I am a professional photographer here in Austin, Texas since 2000… born in NYC in the 60’s, raised in the Philippines and Japan, grew up in 80’s Florida, worked in Mexico and  Belize while working on my anthro/archeo degrees in the 90’s, and have traveled to Norway, France, Canada, Alaska, Vietnam and most recently Iceland. Figurative art and scientific illustration led my way to photography. I started my photo business in Grad school around 1996 (in the days of film) and always appreciated the subtlety of light. Always inspired by renaissance and impressionist art, I seek a modern chiaroscuro when lighting subjects.  My focus as a business is editorial and commercial photography for fashion lifestyle and portraiture, food and restaurant, small and large products and much more. I believe that fashion editorial/lifestyle has that certain “joie de vivre” for advertising and marketing products and ideas. This portfolio represents and interesting slice of time, a mix of kitchy, rustic vintage and modern urbanscapes with uniquely beautiful people. The opportunities of winning 4 Austin Fashion Week Awards for my photography, and to be a part of the Texas/New York Fashion Show scene with all that energy has been one of the best experiences of my life. Regardless of your project, my team and I seek to create bright and colorful photography to help create the look and feel for businesses and help sell product.

Austin Fashion Photographer Gregg Cestaro Launches New Website

Representing 16 years of fashion photography from Austin to New York, Cestaro’s new portfolio features various Vintage and Contemporary Fashion Editorials, New York Fashion Week Runways and Behind the Scenes from the latest shows – overall a 2000’s “style snap shot” of some of the industry’s goings on with up-and-coming and established Fashion Designers and Models from here and around the world. Cestaro’s work revolves around creating and documenting bright colorful images of fashion as art and marketing product. Check it out at http://www.greggcestaro.com

New Ad Design Conceptuals for Cool Fashion Bags and Totes

Applying Photos to Products

www.greggcestaro.com  Playing with some Ad designs for new products with my photos applied.  See more of my Fashion and my wife, Monica’s  Wildlife

Press for my Client SallyDaneshjouCollection.com

Designer Spot from Austin Monthly Sept 15

greggcestaro.com  See below for more about Sally’s collection and our production efforts for her lookbook. Continuing on, her brand is building and was recently recognized in this months Austin Monthly (I was the main shooter for this lifestyle mag for nearly 4 years back in 2003) and had an opportunity to supply her new portrait and designs for this article. Got a good series of environmental portraits with super diffused flash but the image used was a reflected available light shot with a 200mm lens with my usual beauty post-production bumps, although there really wasn’t much to correct with Sally 😉 New designs coming in shortly….can’t wait to shoot em!

PhotoDesign for a New Movie

THROUGH MY DAUGHTER’S EYES

greggcestaro.com   I am pleased to announce the start of something cool and I am very thankful to be a part of doing the PhotoDesign for this new film by Dallas Burgess Through My Daughters Eyes with Avi Lake and a great cast! Joint Concept Productions is pleased to announce the development of its first full length feature film, “Through My Daughter’s Eyes”! We enter the life of Abigail Matthews as she deals with the struggles of her father’s deployment to Iraq and its aftermath. This is a different, and ever important perspective of the effects of war and a story that is all too real. Abbie becomes the voice for all of the military children out there who have faced these challenges…and still do. Please like the Through my Daughters Eyes page and stayed tuned for updates as the project moves into production.

This shot was done in studio on a black background. I used one 800ws flash light with medium size softbox umbrella on the ground pointing up, and had the actress bend sharply at the hip and lean over the light to draw the hair down, and rotate angled the camera for vertical aspect with a 200mm lens. Later in post-production, I shot the flag with ripple corresponding to wavy hair and liquified it to fit and adjusted opacity to 30 percent. I then got some images of soldiers from my airsoft days and added helmets and other accoutrements and arranged them in a meaningful way. I then drew them as an outline and blacked them in and placed them above the hair which I had dodged highlights and increased saturation to give the flame affect. I think it was fortunate, that the interesting transition from fire soldiers to Avi’s hair with flag creates the tension that this new film chronicles.

Designing A LookBook

For A New Fashion Designer, Sally Daneshjou

greggcestaro.com Sally Daneshjou is a new and emerging Haute Couture designer out of Austin Texas. She is designing these amazing luxurious formal and wedding gowns made from fine Italian fabrics and made in Italy by Italian ateliers. Her designs define the feminine shape. We had a rather short time to put all this together before Fashion Week. It was in the middle of Austin Fashion Week, a few months back and a day before her show, that the entire collection finally arrived. Early morning saw us at her elegant studios with models Brittany and Eugenia in hair and make-up as I set up the studio in the large foyer. She asked for a simple white background for the lookbook and for her new website, sallydanehjoucollection.com. I shot this shoot with a single light and 7 foot shoot-through umbrella and a 200mm lens stepped down a stop or two. Natural light shown through but made little effect from the 800ws diffused light. The models came in and went through the motions as music played in the background. The importance for me was to get the structure and patterns of the dresses, details, color and playful emotion and beauty shots. There was plenty to shoot and little time as I had to be downtown for an event after lunch, but as the rhythm of the shoot progressed time flew, and before I knew it we were on the last dress. Post production began with selecting best images for the website which needed to be uploaded that night for the show the following day. I made sure the sensor and lenses were clean, the lighting was spot on so that post-production would be simple and easy since time was of the essence. Production of the initial lookbook for the collection also progressed immediately as well. I opted for a square format, with full body and details blended together. I felt this allowed for an image rich splash for the collection. The image of the long white dress with bow and arms stretched out spoke to me as the cover as it seemed to best represents the free spirit of the collection. The back cover I designed as a 4 image detail shot window pane with logo in the center. The intro-page features Sally backstage of her show and a runway shot (by Gerry Hannan) and an introductory note about the collection. The rest of the pages peppered in best views of the dresses and closed with an Ad of the studio behind the scenes and the collection on the runway shot by Gerry Hannan. Both Gerry and I shot as house photogs for Austin Fashion Week via Advertising and Marketing specialist Cheryl Bemis’s magazine FashionablyAustin.com. Gerry shot front of house, I shot back of house (Behind the Scenes). The initial lookbook was finished and uploaded as a flipbook on issuu.com. It’s not done yet though, the total lookbook concept will also feature on location editorials design as a 10 pager “special-section” in the center slots of the book. Videos, Advertorials, and other editorials to come. It is very exciting to ground floor a new and amazing fashion start-up with so much potential and beauty.

Chicka-d Summer 2015 Catalog

A Well-Established Brand

greggcestaro.com For some time now, Chicka-d brand fashions has grown into a more national company, making new and exciting Game Day Fashions for woman and girls with unique collegiate style and soft breathable fabrics by fashion designer Lauren Polt.  Plenty of fun style to choose from, in infant, tween and adult sizes. This is my second season shooting for this awesome company.  Generally for this type of catalog shoot, its a standard 4 strobe-light 4 corner situation, with 2 hot in the back and 2 exposed for model up front, all on a white background. For these, I shot most of the shoot with by 2.8 70-200mm at 80ISO at 180/sec, underexposed a couple of stops, because the 2.8 is always 2.8. The 200mm range really flattens the perspective of the long tall models. Make-up and hair by MandyHernandez.com. Here are some samples of the catalog. Find your school and retailer at chicka-d.com

UT Fashion Show-Fusion

Up and Coming Designers from Texas!

greggcestaro.com This is the 3rd year shooting the UT Fashion Show with FashionablyAustin. Here, students show their latest for their final exam and for awards and prizes in a rather big production that is simulcast around the world via the Longhorn Network. Check out the complete show from both Cheryl’s and I’s perspective.  I was camera B along the backside shooting toward the end of the runway, which was a good place to be considering that 30 other photogs were in the pit shooting the same thing as everyone else. As much as I like to shoot up the middle as is the case in New York, sometimes the odd side angles get some interesting shots. It can be important to have something different to offer a prospective client than the other photographers have, so be open to the different angle or different lighting. These were shot with my 70-200 and 50mm at 1600 at 250-400/sec, hand held.

 

STYLE IS STRONG

New York Fashion Week 2015

These are a Few of My Favorite Shows:

greggcestaro.com Finally!!!!! I made it out to New York for Fashion Week 2015 with Cheryl Bemis for FashionablyAustin.com and couldn’t have asked for a better time. Only blocks away from Lincoln Center, our HQ and staging area was very convenient for the hustle of getting to and from the shows. I stayed, thanks to my brothers recommendation, at a cool hotel with great views and cool atmosphere. There were three tents for the shows which were amazingly lit for easy shooting. Used to dark local shows and those settings and iffy pictures I was hoping for the best. I used my 70-200 2.8 on my Pentax and was shooting at 400-600th of a second at 2.8 for much of the shows. The lighting makes it easy. Click just Below to see more:

Fighting for a center spot wasn’t to difficult despite the numbers of shooters in the pit, who once settled in were very nice and helpful. Aside from the house and mag shooters taking prime positions, one could squeeze in to get a decent shot up the middle, especially if you had a stool to stand on. I shot 16 shows altogether, including  Isabella Rose’s show and Dina Chavez both from Austin Texas, and got backstage with Venexiana.

ISABELLA ROSE TAYLOR NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

Isabella Rose Taylor’s show was a pretty cool show featuring a live music opener and upbeat fashions. David Tlales was wide and expansive show with an army of African inspired designs up front all at once. Carolina Herrera’s show was light and pretty with a good soundtrack. This show had the prettiest hair and make-up. Honestly though, don’t expect me to write about the styles or fabrics as that is not really my pervue. To be sure, the clothes and mods were awesome to see, pretty and beautiful and fun to shoot in the fleeting minutes a show takes from start to finish. Best of all…. Lydia and I photographed a quick editorial in Central Park, soon to be posted! Can’t wait for next season!!!!

DAVID TLALE NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

CAROLINA HERRERA NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

DENNIS BASSO NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

VENEXIANA NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

REEM ACRA NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

TRINA TURK NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

TRINA TURK NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

DINA CHAVEZ NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

VIVIENNE TAM NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015

NICOLE MILLER NEW YORK FASHION WEEK 2015