A Day in New York City with Photographer Belle Morizio
Belle Morizio is an New York City-based photographer. She is the in-house photographer for Domino and Saveur Magazine. For Domino, she mainly shoots interiors of homes, offices, and art studios. For Saveur, she focuses mostly on shooting meals and recipes. She has lived in the city for seven years and is constantly drawing inspiration from the people she meets along the way. Her day involves snuggling with her cat, photographing an incredible art studio, and trying to find love in NYC.
9:30am: It’s shoot day! My alarm goes off as I roll over to face my beloved cat, Roman, whose sleeping spot is right next to my pillow. The two of us greet each other with some slow blinking and then we both decide it’s time to get up and do some big stretching. Once out of bed, Roman likes to let me know he is hungry by biting my ankles.
10:30am: With Roman fed and me dressed and washed up, I’m ready to do what I call “opening shift”. This is where I go around and open all of the blinds in my apartment, sweep up the cat litter Ro likes to kick out of the box, and pick up the dry food he can’t seem to keep in his bowl. I also decided my plants need some love after looking at them and noticing the soil is very dry…I’m trying my best to keep them alive.
After my morning chores, I call an uber to take me to my shoot destination. I always make sure to lay out all of my photo equipment the night before so I'm not scrambling in the morning racing against my uber driver before he pulls up.
11:00am: I arrive at the shoot location. Today I am shooting a studio tour for Domino of the wonderful and talented artist and illustrator, Oliver Jeffers. Oliver has had his artwork exhibited in many different museums such as the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Palais Auersperg in Vienna. He also has won many awards for his critically acclaimed children's books, which have been sold worldwide.
You can imagine that walking into his work space was like a dream come true. He had so many wonderful antique pieces such as his huge flat files where he stored his works and art materials. He also had little cardboard models of different objects hanging from his ceiling, and a friendly ghost sitting in the corner on a stool.
1:30pm: I’m working with Naomi today on styling out Oliver’s space. While it usually takes a bit of effort to style someone's home, Naomi and I decided that Oliver had the perfect amount of “organized mess” and it didn’t take much styling to make it look perfect for the photos.
2:00pm: The shoot today was located in Carroll Gardens which is such a lovely area in Brooklyn. On the way out of the shoot I decided to stop in the Kule pop-up shop. Their clothing collection was amazing and I spent a good amount of time looking at everything. I decided to buy a beautiful silk scarf which was handmade in Italy and a striped pair of wool socks. I had a date later in the evening so I figured they would be a nice addition to my date look.
3:30pm: I get home from the shoot, drop my equipment off, say hi to Roman and then hop on the bus to a nail appointment. As a Taurus, I’m a strong believer in self-care. Every few weeks I like to get a manicure because I feel that having my nails done completes my look. I only do a simple French tip but I always change up the colors according to the season. Today I decided to go for a nice autumn orange color, which goes with the scarf I will be wearing on my date later.
5:00pm: After feeding Ro his dinner, I decided to make a quick snack for myself and do some photo editing for work. I’m currently working on editing a story about an apartment renovation by Prospect Park. When I edit, I like to sit by my living room window in my comfy chair. I’m lucky enough to have a view of a backyard, trees and birds. I find that this mentally takes me out of the hustle and bustle of the city for a bit. Roman likes to join me and usually sits on the windowsill to watch the birds while I work.
8:30pm: I catch the bus again to go meet my date, Jay, at Queens Brewery in Bushwick; Jay picked the place we were meeting. It was a cool spot that had fun bar games to play and a live jazz band. We order a couple of wines and decide to start up a serious game of chess. Unfortunately I lost, but it was a close game and I almost had him. We chatted about our days and I told him about the article that I was going to be featured in for Madame Architect. I showed him some of the photos I took of the day and he thought it was pretty neat and was excited to be a part of it!
11:30pm: I arrive home from my evening out and get washed up for bed and into my pajamas. I’m pretty exhausted from the day so I know that I’ll fall asleep pretty quickly. I set my alarm for early morning because I have another shoot the next day. Rinse and repeat as they say! I turn off the light and as soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out.