Busy Summer for this Photographer in Miami

It's been a little while since I've posted a blog and that is because I have been keeping myself very busy (thankfully.) Now that I have some time I would like to share with you some of the photographs from the Summer.

One big job and opportunity for me was from Puma. They needed a photographer in Miami to shoot one of their store employees around town for a brochure that will be produced and given to people staying at the new W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale.




Another great opportunity I had was to be the photographer on a shoot inv0lving firemen from South Florida. The shoot was commissioned by Sperian which is a company that makes protective gear for firemen. It was a hot Miami Summer afternoon and the men were training in temperatures of up to 750 degrees.




I had a photo shoot with local Miami record label Point Blank City involving their top rapper Spoat...


and the label's CEO Danilo...



And I finally got some time to finish a photograph that was taken after my father had beaten throat cancer...

Great photographs with your point and shoot camera part 1...

I have been looking into some methods of capturing better images with my point and shoot camera since it is easier to carry it around and I would be uncomfortable pulling out my pro camera in some social situations. The point and shoot is smaller, more discrete, and people are sometimes more comfortable being in front of it. The example photograph used in this blog is from my girlfriends birthday in which we went to the Biltmore in Coral Gables. I wanted to capture some scenes from the night in quality images without disturbing the mood.


The first thing you may want to get rid of for more interesting lighting in your night shots is the use of on camera flash (except in some cases which I will explain in part 2 of this blog.) The flash causes flat lighting on your subject and does nothing for lighting the background. This image would have been black apart from the woman and the first few steps had I used my on camera flash to expose for the shot.
To shoot at night without the flash you must choose scenes that have some available light and then set the camera to a high ISO (this causes an increase in noise which I think is an acceptable sacrifice.) In an extreme low light situation the shutter speed is going to be very slow so be prepared to keep a steady hand or use a tripod. On this night I chose situations that mainly had multiple light sources so that I could maintain a snapshot theme and would not have to bring any equipment into the situation.
In this image the warm light from the tungsten bulbs lights her right side while the cool light from the twilight falls on her left side. I have attached a few more examples of shooting at night with no flash from this night.

Miami Street Fahion

This week I found myself in Miami Beach on Lincoln Road asking strangers on the street to allow me to photograph them for a fashion story. The client needed 20 males and 20 females who displayed a unique or local fashion sense and it was my job to get the shots. Every so often I am pushed out of my comfort zone and encouraged to reach out to people at random. At first this makes me uneasy, but once the ice is broken I always find myself asking "why don't I do stuff like this more often?"

Sure, I received some cold shoulders but that is expected and can easily be brushed off. The people who allowed me to photograph them have my gratitude and the best of the bunch were posted online at Miami Fashion Photos.

Also, don't forget to check out the Miami Photograph of the Week.