Meet Isabella

Child in a floral apron holding a wooden spoon beside a large cooking pot and utensils.

An artist at heart, I’ve tried my hand at just about everything (and, not to toot my own horn, was pretty good at most). But when I picked up my first camera at 14, something clicked. Photography stuck. Largely self-taught, I found my footing in food and still life, where light, precision, and composition become tools for transforming the familiar into something unexpected.

I grew up immersed in a wildly varied world of cultures, personalities, art, and contrasting realities. Born with a wide lens- my shutter perpetually open, taking it all in.

 

I’ve never quite looked at the world the way other people do. I’m drawn to the unexpected, the unconventional, the things that exist just beyond the edges of what we recognize.

A friend once described my work as “an invitation to an alternate reality”—like stepping into a circus or passing through the looking glass. I can't think of a better way to describe it.

Whatever I turn my lens toward will inevitably bear the Cassini stamp: a distinct point of view, an unmistakable sensibility, and a little bit of the unexpected.

 

Photography gives me purpose. It connects me to the world and gives form to things I can’t express in words. What begins as a solitary act becomes something I can share— images which invite you to feel or recognize something, that reach somewhere visceral, and will linger long after you’ve looked away.

 

Some cultures believe that taking a photograph steals your soul. For me, it gives me one.

Profile on Isabella Cassini from Oregon art beat, OPB

Feature on OPB, Art Beat Oregon

Produced by (and aired on) Oregon Public Broadcasting. Click to watch my photographic process for my most exciting crashes images and kaleidoscopes. Click to watch on OPB website.

Partial Client List

DROPS Candies

*

Gallo Salame

*

FRWD Agency

*

Bailey's

*

Golf Digest

*

PURE Agency

*

Portland Monthly

*

Goodwolf

*

James Beard Foundation

*

Edible LA

*

Taste of Home

*

DROPS Candies * Gallo Salame * FRWD Agency * Bailey's * Golf Digest * PURE Agency * Portland Monthly * Goodwolf * James Beard Foundation * Edible LA * Taste of Home *

SmashLoveEat! Exhibition.

With a grant from RACC, I produced an entirely independent exhibition in an abandoned warehouse. Watch to find out more.

(Click HERE to check out write up in PDX monthly).

AWARDS

PDN'S 'TASTE' FOOD PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS: 

GRAND PRIZE

INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS: 

1ST PLACE (ADVERTISING)

1ST, 2ND, 3RD PLACE (FOOD)

LUCIE AWARDS:

FINALIST FOR DISCOVERY OF THE YEAR