I met Mike Reilly at the OKTOBERFEST opening reception at ORNG Ink last year. He was taking Polaroids and we exchanged information. The rest was history. He contributed beautiful shots to The Music Issue, including the cover. Thursday night, my Mom and I went to his first photography exhibit at Lura NYC, an intimate bar/restaurant and live music venue.

Mike’s portraits were to die for. He is so creative, and always thinking outside of the box. He has a way of making his subjects feel comfortable enough to act silly and go through with his crazy ideas. And the end result is always somewhat magical. My favorites, beside the ones of Lusive and Eris Dublin that were in the Winter issue, were the ones of Curran and AJ, of the folk band Brother Valiant. All of the portraits were fun, and expressed the element of the “noisemaker”.

It was proud and fun night. It was such a pleasure to see how joyous Mike was, and the successful night. There were so many people packed in the upstairs, attic style bar area. I met some interesting people, the best thing about going to bars on the Upper West Side, and was joined by Curran, AJ and Mr. Marco Dorce. Mike was exuberant, and the guests were excited about the photographs. I think this was the first chapter of a very good book, the creative genius of Mike Reilly.

Here some of the shots:

Read the Music Issue stories here.