Having grown up in Miami/ South Florida my whole life I have a certain affinity for folks that grow up in Miami, rising from nothing to make it big. Hip hop sensation Tramar Dillard, better known as Flo Rida, is one of these folks.  He was born and raised in Carol City, Fl. by his single mother  who raised him and his 7 sisters.  A little while after Flo Rida’s  hit album titled Low dropped, Joshua Prezant Photography was assigned by  XXL Magazine to photograph the artist.  The photo editor and great guy all around , Mike D,  wanted him photographed in the areas of where he grew up.  The magazine wanted to get away from the South Beach image that was regularly portrayed in magazines when they talk about Miami.  With less then a day notice my team was off to scout for some locations.  Not knowing how much of a entourage to expect we had to make sure any location could accommodate several cars and people.  Without time to get permits from the city we had to relay on our contacts in the community to give us permission to photograph on private property ( it pays to have grown up where you work).  However, none of that was necessary as his came to the shoot with a couple of people and a big smile.  We did not have too much time with Flo Rida as he had several other media event booked for the day.  But with the help of my assistant Noelle (also a fine photographer) and a easy going subject we were able to knock out several set ups.

It was a true pleasure working with Flo Rida.

Joshua Prezant’s images featured in two books about the band Green Day.

Today I was informed that several of my images taken of the band Green Day have been featured in two separate books.  The first book is by author Marc Spitz ( not the gold medal winning swimmer, but the former senior writer at Spin Magazine) titled Nobody likes You: inside the turbulent life, times, and music of Green Day. The second, by author Ben Myers, is titled Green Day: American Idiots & The New Punk Explosion.

Being a big fan of Green Day since their Kerplunk album in ’92, I was really psyched to photograph them live.  I had been to their concerts as a fan in the past and was never disappointed. Outside of The Rolling Stones, Run DMC and oddly enough, The Barenacked Ladies ( in the mid 90’s), I think Green Day had always given one of the best live performances.  And shooting them during there American Idiots’s tour was no exception.  It was one of the few concerts I photographed where I found myself singing along as I shot. Now, having my images immortalized in 2 well regarded books on the band is just great.

What do you get when you put hip hop icon Missy Elliot together with a few wads of Bubblicious gum…

Missy Elliot by © Joshua Prezant

This is one of the images that people always ask me about. So I figured I would share the details:

Sometimes a photographer goes into a shoot knowing exactly what they want to do and how they wants to pose, light, and frame  the image.  And sometimes they just go with the flow and work with what they have.  I do both!  I try to have some conceptual ideas ahead of time after working with the client, editors, graphic designer, and art director.  But I always try for the unexpected during the shoot.  This was the case for this shoot.

When shooting celebrities time is ALWAYS an issue. You are eaither sitting around waiting for hours and hours for the star to show up or your waiting around for them to be finished with the 100 other things they are doing at the same time.  Then you usually have 2 minutes to actually shoot.

I know a lot of people think and assume it is because the celebrities are divas.  But this is not the case.  It is because they are working!  In order to become the top of your game in any field you have to work.  And the bigger the star the harder they usually work.  I was scheduled to shoot Missy Elliot and singer Monica on the set of a music video shoot in a mansion that was rented out for the video on Key Biscayne for InStyle Magazine.  I was set to shoot both artists in between scene for the video when they were not in the particular shot.    These video shoots are usually 2- 5 day shoots that start before sunrise and end late into the night.  On this day not only was Missy shooting the video and and doing the still shoot with me, she had 3 magazine interviews and a Tv interview as well.  The girl works!!  There was not more then 10 minutes that when by where she was just hanging out.  But luckily for me I sitting with her during one of these rare moments when she was relaxing and I saw her blowing bubbles and smacking them with her lips.  After doing a couple of enviromental shots of her in the house, I handed her a bunch more gum from the crafts table and asked her to ingnore me and everyone else and go to town with the gum.  She knew exactly what I wanted and was happy to have a a few more minutes to realx.  The image(s) above was the result.  Missy was fantastic her people were fantastic and the whole video crew was great.

REAL PEOPLE REAL STORIES REAL ADS

When doing advertising jobs you usually work with hired talent.  The goal is to make the models look right at home in whatever environment you put them in to get across the story/branding that the client hired you to achieve. During the Summer I was hired by one of my long time clients, Baptist Health Systems, to produce and shoot a couple of ads for them featuring real patients that have had surgeries done with the latest technology, Robotic Surgery.  This new less invasive type of surgery had the patients up and back doing the things they love in half the time it would have taken them with traditional surgery.   The concept was to show these individuals back in action doing what they love.

The shoot called for 4 locations all across the greater Miami Area in half a day.  With the help of my assistant Alex Kolyer ( a great photographer himself) we pulled off the shoots despite 90 degree plus temperatures in the morning and a torrential downpour in the afternoon.  Wonderful graphic art designer Denise Ledee Winston laid out the ads.

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Sometimes when you walk into a shoot everything is just in place and perfect.  You have a great background, great light, super models, and so on.  The picture almost happens by itself.  And then there are the other 99.9 percent of the times when the photographer has to make chicken salad out of chicken shit!

This recent shoot was a perfect example of the other 99.9 percent.  Joshua Prezant Photography was hired to take a portrait of two gifted professors at the University of Miami’s Engineering School who developed a cloud computing setup for the school’s students to use.  I was tasked with making a striking photo of a relatively visually boring subject matter.  The problems at hand were: 1. We were working in a very little space (being that only one computer rack in this big server room was the one that was for the cloud computing). 2. It was important for the client to show the actual components being used and to not show any other compnents not part of this cload computing. 3. The actual computer system was not completely setup ( which actually ended up working for me for the shot I had in mind).  The professors were just starting to put all the components together. 4. The subjects had  never been photographed before by a professional and were a very nervous.

My assistant and I arrived about an hour before the shoot to get in place and begin the process of making something out of nothing.  And every care had to be made to be very careful.  We were working in a computer server room housing millions and millions of dollars worth of sensitive computer equipment (not your $1,600 Imac).  This would not have been the time to blow a circuit or a fuse on the outlet.  Having done our research about the type of environment we were working in and having photographed many time before in this type of environment we knew that it was important to bring the site manager on board to help locate safe outlets and triple check that non of our gear would interfere with anything.  Once we were all cleared to setup and test the creative part kicked in.  Using a mix of gels,  grids and a long exposer I wanted to add some color to a very monocromatic scene.  After a few jokes and being able to show the subjects what the picture would look like…they were more then happy to squeez into the computer rack and get VERY close together.  Even though everything was not all set and wonderful before we arrived I was able to able to produce a image that the client was thrilled with and the subject were super psyched about!

The small rack on the end ( next to one of the subjects) was the space we had to work with. This is a shot taken a day before by the subjects to show me the space.

A lot of people asked about my lighting setup. So here is it.

Tag Magazine’s first issue came out today.  It is a nice collection of photos from a wide range of photographers. On Page 103 is a image I took in Miami Beach a while back when The Beastie Boys played at the Cameo.  Being that the Beastie Boys had not performed in Florida prior to this for the past 10 years, it was a great treat to not only get to see them, but to photograph a band that I really enjoy.  This was a win win for everyone.  The client was happy and I had a great time.