Gabrielle Geiselman-Milone

For Gabrielle Geiselman-Milone, home is where the art is. Her environment has always inspired her work, whether it was the hedonism of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip in the ‘80s, where at age 13 she snuck into clubs to snap bands like L.A. Guns and Faster Pussycat, or the cultural richness of New Orleans, the city that has become her greatest muse.

Born in San Francisco, CA in 1972, Gabrielle got her first Canon Elan camera at age 12. By the time she entered CalArts and The Boston Conservatory of Music she’d already shot some of music’s biggest stars, like Rob Zombie, Alice in Chains, and Social Distortion. And when she graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute with a degree in Photography, she had added Marilyn Manson, Tool, and The Sex Pistols to her growing repertoire.

Gabrielle soon branched out into commercial work with brands like Veuve Cliquot, Gibson, Marshall, and Ibanez. But a shoot with the legendary musician Alice Cooper for the cover of his 2008 album Along Came a Spider was a personal game-changer, revealing a penchant for portraiture that shapes her work today.

While the cities and scenes of San Francisco and Los Angeles helped define Gabrielle’s career, there was another one whose call she could not resist: New Orleans. She’d been a visitor to the city for half her life, and in 2004, she decided to make it her home. Says Gabrielle in a 2013 interview about her photographs in the wake of Katrina with Headline News "I never had a city embrace me the way New Orleans did. On some intense level, I felt an overwhelming loyalty to return that love and still do to this very day. You either get New Orleans or you don't. For me it was the missing piece and, as an artist, the most magnificent muse I have ever known.”

In 2013, Gabrielle opened her studio in New Orleans’ Lower Garden District and, inspired by the culinary richness and history of the city, shifted her focus to Food and Lifestyle photography. Since then, she’s been featured in noteworthy publications Food and Wine, The New York Times, The Times Picayune, New Orleans Magazine, Grub Street, and Cherry Bombe Magazine, and captured the spirit of culinary luminaires like Sean Brock, Kelly Fields (Willa Jean), and Justin Devillier (James Beard Best Chef: South Winner and Balise and La Petite Grocery).

With such a diverse background, Gabrielle has a client list to match: Tourism Board of New Orleans, Tourism Board of Louisiana, Emeril Lagasse Restaurant Group, LeBlanc and Smith Restaurant Group, Balise, La Petite Grocery, Sazerac Company, Interscope Records , New Orleans Magazine, Simply Organic, The Times Picayune, Sheri Bodell, Skingraft and Shannon Koszyk Jewelry. A full list is available on request.

- Written by Carrie Tucker