The Idea
In July of 2025, I reached out to a model on Instagram who was looking to create some content for her portfolio. Nikola and her mother, Chloe, had recently moved to Valencia and wanted to collaborate with some photographers. I sent some ideas their way to get us started, but then Chloe sent me some ideas they had come up with.
Many of the inspiration images she sent included roller skates and not inline skates, but the traditional “truck” setup style. I instantly liked the idea and suggested we move forward. Chloe and I met the following week in the Turia to scout some locations for a session the following week.
Nikola recreating one of the many inspiration shots on which we based this shoot
Location
Valencia has no end of unique and interesting locations and in this case, we wanted to find a string of places where we could simply walk from one “set” to the next. Starting at the Flower bridge in the Turia, Chloe and I took a scouting walk heading south towards the City of Arts and Sciences.
Pretty soon we had chosen several spots to which we would return for the shoot. This included locations on and under some of the bridges as well as including some water features. With a selection of spaces in our minds, we agreed to return the next week ready to shoot.
Our starting location. Photo courtesy of Picryl
The Teams
What I saw as a straightforward street style session quickly became a more involved production. From my side, I had not only Carmen assisting me, but two new friends who had recently arrived from the United States. Marie and Tirzah came along for the afternoon to help carry and setup equipment. Also, Tirzah is a great videographer and shot a ton of BTS vids throughout the afternoon.
I knew that Chloe would be along, assisting her daughter, Nikola, who was to be our model. They also brought along makeup artist Alina Lykova and jewelry designer @ST_TKA. Sometimes having a large crew that’s not part of the plan can create chaos, but it worked out great to have all the extra hands on deck. Everyone played their parts and pitched in to assist in areas they might not normally be asked to do.
Open Skating
To begin our shoot, we worked on capturing Nikola in motion near one of the ponds near the Flower Bridge. This was a bit of a challenge for Nikola as she doesn’t actually know how to roller skate. This ended up working out great as I grabbed some shots of her having fun and also looking quite serious as she worked to stay up off the ground.
Lacing Up
After we wrapped up at the first location we moved up to the top of the bridge. After climbing the stairs to reach the top of the bridge, Nikola sat down to put on her skates. Of course, as these things sometimes go, something as mundane as putting on skates ended up looking interesting. I grabbed a few shots of her getting ready and with a little post-processing, created a dreamy, vintage vibe from this unplanned mini-series of images.
Getting Edgy
After some shots on top of the bridge, I wanted us to flip the vibe and go a bit more edgy. We went back under the bridge so we could make use of the graffiti on the walls below. It was a bright sunny day so even in the shade of the bridge above, it was still very much “daytime”. To give this group of shots a nighttime feel, we set up a strobe bounced into a large (120cm) silver umbrella.
The silver umbrella gave us a broad, directional light source with the results have more contrast and sharper overall tone. Using a medium aperture (f 7.1) with a 65mm lens allowed the background to stay sharp enough for the graffiti details to come through. The graffiti itself becomes a character sharing the stage here with Nikola.
Kicking up Your Heels
One of my favorite inspiration images that Chloe had sent showed a model on their back with skates in the air. When we had scouted locations, I had a feeling that the water feature in front of the Palau de Musica would offer the right view for this. The broad, low wall around the water was a perfect place for Nikola to lay on her back.
I was able to shoot from a seated position to line up Nikola in the frame. I had the easy part of sitting down while Nikola had to hold her legs in the air with those heavy skates. Of course, as she did throughout the whole shoot, she was patient and professional. We were able to get enough shots for us to have a good selection to choose from in the end. My favorite from this series is the lead image in this story at the top of the page.
Jacket Required
At our last location, we pulled out the pink and white Hello Kitty leather jacket Nikola had brought along. I wanted to make sure we got at least a couple of different looks in the jacket so we used ambient light for some photos as well as some fill flash shots for a rough, high-contrast look. Use of some color grading on the flash images created a false-color effect, looking more like and old Polaroid photo than a modern digital image.
Parting Shots
It often happens that I think we’re done with our shoot, but then something will catch my eye. In this case it was a shaft of light from overhead where the bridge above has a gap running its length. I had Nikola walk into this light for a moment to see how this would look and it was very clear we needed to make use of this light.
We quickly shot a series of images with her back to me, looking over her shoulder to varying degrees. These quickly received lots of appreciation from the team as we reviewed the initial photos. Running on that energy we worked together for a couple of more minutes before calling an end to the shoot.
The Wrap
With the last of the shots done, everyone started working to gather up their gear, jackets, and other various items (in one case, their child) as we made sure to leave little trace of our presence. I feel it’s important to be mindful of the locations where I shoot and make sure that all involved pick up any trash or other debris we may have dropped during our shoot such as food wrappers or drink containers.
While we did this, Nikola took a moment to get off her feet on the nearby grassy slope. Of course she looked so beautiful and relaxed that I had to grab a few more photos before retiring the camera for the rest of the day.
