Angel Valentín Photos
Angel Valentín, editorial, commercial, portrait, celebrity, travel and destination wedding photographer based in Puerto Rico and Miami.
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Sometimes things happen for a reason. I got hired to shoot the wedding of Daniella and Lester by the official photographer who had a last minute schedule conflict and needed a replacement. I happened to be open that day and took the job.
The wedding was being held in Islamorada in the Florida Keys in a beach resort called Coconut Cove Resort and Marina. I recruited Patrick Farrell, Pulitzer Prize photojournalist who is a staff photographer at The Miami Herald. Patrick does not really shoot weddings which is exactly what I wanted; a storyteller.
Everything was perfect, warm but very breezy, too much for mosquitoes to attempt safe landing and great to keep everyone cool.
This is a quick preview of some of the moments photographed in their wedding.
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Yesterday I shot the Bar Mitzvah of Andrew Bass which came to me as a direct referral from my friend and colleague Ginny Dixon.
I started early in the morning with a portrait session at the Temple before the ceremony. Following that was a luncheon also at the Temple where the family had a Horah dance and candle lighting.
In the evening the celebration moved to Fort Lauderdale’s Xtreme Indoor Karting which was a complete blast for both children and adults. Live music, dancing and great food and beverages.
Here’s a preview of some of the photos I shot throughout the long day. My friend Cristobal Herrera 2nd shot with me in the morning and my wife Isaida Ortiz assisted.
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A few weeks ago I was chatting with my friend Sven Creutzmann, an incredible German photographer who’s been calling Cuba home for the last two decades, about this little camera he carries around his neck all the time and just loves. I take Sven’s opinions on gear seriously. Unlike me, he actually reads the manuals and knows exactly what all the terms and specs mean. I’ve always been a point and shoot camera guy and almost exclusively have shot Canon compact cameras. After talking with Sven I decided to get me a Panasonic Lumix LX7 with an optional electronic view finder. I now know what loving a point and shoot really means. This is by far the best compact I’ve ever owned. I will gush about it later on but in the meantime I will just share some snaps I’ve made with it. 1st question was low light performance of course. I’ll say that even shooting RAW files I feel like anything past ISO640-800 is just ok. But since this camera’s Leica zoom lens is so fast , f1.4-f2.3, I can actually shoot @ ISO400 in dark places and open up the lens to make awesome images (see the lighter pic and the bar images). IT also has some of the same scenery options my Canons offer like miniature effect (faux tilt shift look), square format, Holga look and panoramic mode. The monochrome (black and white) film look is awesome in my opinion. For those of you who shoot shoot video you’ll be blown away by the quality, I love the 120fps HD videos.
Check out the camera, for $450-$290 (depending where you shop) you can’t get a better compact camera. It will not fit in your pants like Canon’s S models (unless you wear cargo pants) but it’s not even an issue once you start using it.
I can totally see myself shooting editorial gigs, travel pieces and even some reportage with this compact monster. That and my iPad mini and all I need is a wi-fi signal to get stuff done. -
I’ve been making a few changes to my approach to wedding photography. One of the things I’m starting to do more is to bring a protable set of lights. I’m still not sure what kit works best and I’m afraid it will take me a while to figure this out. In the past I’ve just used on camera flash units, bounced or using an off camera cord or radio transmitter.
I recently shot a wedding in Puerto Rico’s El Convento Hotel which I lit with two Dynalite Uni400JR heads. That worked a little while until I blew a fuse in one of the heads. Problem was I was sharing the lights with one of the other two photographers I had brought with me for this event. Also, I found my lights to be a bit too powerful for the venue and the white walls turned my heads into huge light banks thus killing the nice ambiance of the place.
A few weeks ago, I was 2nd shooting a wedding with a friend in The Addisoson in Boca Raton, Florida. For this event I brought a more portable and less powerful strobist kit. I used two LumoPro 160 speedlights to light up the reception hall from above. I put Gary Fong reflectors with diffusers on them and fresh AA batteries. That seemed to work ok. I was generally happy with them. I did power the strobes down to 1/16th. In retrospect I could’ve gone up to 1/8 or 1/4. I definitely need an alternate source of power for the strobes because I was missing a few frames due to the slower recycle time. However, my batting average went up twice to about 55% (good images). Another great thing; I shot about 35% less this time.
For the next wedding I will use a set of two Alien Bees 800 I will soon pick up from a friend. I like the fact that I can fire them with my Pocket Wizards TT1/TT5 and along with an AC3 and AC9 I can power them up, down or disable them as I see fit without having to go to them to tweak. I will add a couple of those PaulBuff lithium batt packs. This should be great.
I’m still struggling to find a good lens workflow that allows me to shoot how I like to shoot and doesn’t seem cumbersome. I’m currently mixing the use of zoom and fast primes. I would love to shoot with just primes, @ least the preparations and reception. I’m ok using zooms for the ceremony. The last time I used primes exclusively I wasn’t very pleased with the result. I’ll figure it out soon.
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Yesterday I got a last minute call from a picture editor @ The New York Times asking me if I could shoot a job for her. The Miami City Ballet has a new director, Lourdes Lopez, and the Times needed photos of her. Only catch was that I had to get there right away because it was a rehearsal that was scheduled to end in 1 1/2 hours.
No problem, I can do that. The truth is, I was sitting in front of the computer editing some photos I’d shot the day before for the NY Daily News and I wanted to walk away from the computer so I ran out of the house. Made it there with 45 minutes to go in the rehearsal.
I had enough time to shoot the NYT photos and also to play around with my iPhone.
Hera are some iPhone Hipstamatic images I made, all tilted which I hardly ever do.
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Just returned from a 10 day trip to Puerto Rico. I had an assignment for The Ocean Conservancy to photograph their International Beach Clean Up Day. I have shot this event for the OC twice already and it’s always a good time when I shoot this.
I stayed a few more days to spend time with my parents and to take advantage of a Canon Professional Services “check and clean” visit. Getting your gear cleaned on a regular basis is a must when you do professional photography. Cameras and lenses collect dust and dirt, lenses get banged around, rained on and need adjustment and some parts have to be replaced.
My friend and awesome photographer Cristobal Herrera flew down from Miami to hang out a couple of days. This is Cristobal’s second trip to Puerto Rico, last time I flew him down to have him second shoot a wedding for me in Old San Juan.
On day two of this trip we went to El Yunque Rainforest for a short hike to a waterfall called La Mina. The forest is actually a 10 minute drive from my beach apartment (which by the way became a bigger part of my trip). On the forest hike I decided to take my trusty Canon S100 point and shoot and my former IR converted Canon G9 which I borrowed from my friends Mike/Sue Stocker (after I sold it to them).I shot strictly using the “miniature effect” on the S100 and this is what I’m showing here. The effect is a gimicky “lens babyis/tilt shiftish” effect. It’s some kind of digital fliter that blurs or masks the parts of the frame you choose to mask out.
Here is my attempt.
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Tobacco Road is Miami’s oldest bar, in November it celebrates 100 years. The bar sits next to the Miami River in downtown Miami. Great live music, great BBQ Mondays and the crowd is chill and not too young which I like a lot.
Last night Isaida and I decided to stop by and have a couple of drinks, some chicken wings and listen to the live band.
Only weird thing all night long, an egg (probably from a pigeon’s nest) fell from the oak tree above our table outdoors and broke on Isaida’s shot of Maker’s Mark. Pretty special.
The land where Tobacco Road is located has been sold and the bar will allegedly move to a new location after their lease runs out in 3 years or longer. It’s not a clear picture.
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Last week I was hired by The New York Times to drive from Miami to the South West corner of Florida and provide photographic coverage of the approaching Tropical Storm Isaac. Because the Republican Party was holding it’s National convention in the city of Tampa during the same days the storm was scheduled to pass by there was a small possibility the event would be affected thus turning it into a bigger story.
I drove out in the morning, the storm was supposed to brush my area of coverage in the afternoon. Nothing really happened. There was some flooding, some tree branches down, several hundred residents lost power temporarily. Luckily, in that region, there were no reports of deaths, although the storm was responsible for several fatalities in the Caribbean.
On day two of my coverage, Isaac kept moving away towards Louisiana, where it hit as a category 1 hurricane, I was pretty sure the Times would just tell me to go home. I ate breakfast and drove a few miles to the pier in Naples. There were a bunch of surfers riding the 2-3 footers kicked up by the passing storm. I shot mostly w/my iPhone convinced the paper wouldn’t need me. I had already left a voice mail and email w/the assigning editor. Lucky for me, I had carried a 5d2 and a couple of small lenses (a 16-35 2.8L and a 50mm 1.4) with me to the pier. I snapped a few frames w/it to cover myself in case the Times wanted photos.
I left the pier after a little while and I get the call from the editor telling me they wanted some photos. I drove a little up the coast and found some flooding scenes and general clean up art. The Times ended up running a photo I shot from the pier that I shot w/my 5d2.
Here are the iPhone photos I did not send the New York Times.
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I have been working on adding some recent work to my websites; angelvalentin.com and islandweddingfotos.com.
I decided to add a portfolio of photos shot with my iPhone to my editorial site. A lot of these images are what I would classify as street art. Mostly I use the Hipstamatic app. I’m not a fan of using these photos in contests but I like a lot of work I see done with them so I’m not 100% sure I will continue to feel this way.
Please stop by www.angelvalentin.com and surf over to the iPhone Art portfolio.
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This is a follow up to my last blog entry featuring some images I made with my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app during a small period of time that I shot students @ the University of Puerto Rico during a months long strike.
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