Trope: Miami

More than fifty of my photographs appear in Trope: Miami, part of Trope’s City Edition series, edited by Michelle Fitzgerald and Sam Landers. Most were made the way I always work: on foot, in neighborhoods I know, waiting for the light and the people to line up. Here are eight shots from the book, and the stories behind two of them.

Woman waiting to cross as a cream and teal classic convertible passes the Señor Frog’s building in South Beach

Beach worker carrying an armload of yellow umbrellas past rows of yellow lounge chairs on South Beach

Father and young child walking across the sand beneath tall palm trees at Crandon Park on Key Biscayne

Two women walking past a casino-themed “Ritmo” mural with 305 slot-machine sunglasses in Miami

Metromover cars on the elevated track above SE 2nd Street and SE 1st Avenue in Downtown Miami

Skateboarder catching air beneath the graffiti-covered grandstand of the abandoned Miami Marine Stadium

SLS LUX Brickell

I stepped out onto my balcony for some fresh air. It was just before midday, and the palm shadows were falling straight into the pools. An hour either way and they would have fallen across the deck, and it would have been a completely different picture.

What caught my eye was the pocket of light at the corner of South Miami Avenue and SE 8th Street, the only part of the street that wasn’t in shadow.

I didn’t have to wait for this one. It was waiting for me. I just had to see it.

The only decision was the frame. I could have gone tighter on the pools, but two blue rectangles could be anywhere. I pulled back to take in the intersection and Fabián Burgos’s mural on the SLS LUX garage, so anyone who knows Miami would recognize the location.

SLS Brickell Miami rooftop pool deck palm trees cabanas luxury hotel Brickell aerial photography

SW 8th Street

I was always drawn to this building. Its whole face was covered in tropical foliage, and it was beautiful work.

Then one morning there were ladders against it and men painting. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They weren’t restoring it. They were covering it.

I took this from across the street. You can see how far they’d gotten: the greens still holding at the left corner, the orange moving across everything else, and the old outlines showing faintly where the new paint hadn’t buried them yet.

The workers gave me focal points, but the right side of the frame was empty, just the folding shutters. I waited for someone to walk into that space and balance the wall. The man on the ladder was climbing, which kept the shot from feeling static, and the red shirt added a color that wasn’t already in the building.

Miami is changing quickly. I try to document the changes I see, and I knew I had to capture this one. The building is still that one color today.

Little Havana Miami street mural art installation tropical palm leaves colorful graffiti urban building exterior public art.

Available at Trope: Miami