RUNNING WITH THE DOLPHINS

A winless regular season start for the Miami Dolphins finally turned as they defeated the Buffalo Bills, 38-10 at Land Shark Stadium. My photography coverage included images of Ronnie Brown carrying the ball 20 times to lead a stout Dolphins rushing attack with 115 yards and two touchdowns. Ricky Williams carried the ball 16 times for 85 yards and a touchdown while wearing the Breast Cancer Awareness pink gloves to bring more color to his game. Its the Jets Monday night at home, then I will travel to New York City and again cover the Jets/Dolphins rivalry at Giant Stadium in the Meadowlands. I love shooting football in the fall in the north, perfect temperatures.

PANTHER GOLD

The Florida Panthers season started in Sweden this month but moments before they got on the plane to cross the Atlantic I had a portrait session with the goalies Scott Clemmensen and Thomas Vokoun at the Bank Atlantic Center. Part of the joy of this assignment was watching my friend attorney/ 'photo assistant of the day', Paul Valmert; he plays amateur hockey four days a week and buys season tickets to the Panthers' games, he had a chance to have some one-on-one time with these guys. Very little time, the team allowed five minutes for the portrait session. All I needed was three minutes.

NEW YORK CITY GALLERY OPENING

Recently I partnered with ART PHOTO EXPO GALLERY, they are a Parisian couple that started the ARTPHOTOEXPO FAIR, created and produced by ART PHOTO EXPO CONCEPT GROUP as an avant-garde fair showcasing the world’s leading photographic art galleries. The first ARTPHOTOEXPO FAIR debuted in 2008 as a boutique gallery-based fair within established IN FASHION PHOTO exhibition. The Fair received a terrific response from the public, press and exhibiting galleries with over 30,000 attendees in 6 days, $2.5 million in press coverage and sales figures that exceeded expectations. During Art Basel 2008, ARTPHOTOEXPO FAIR offered a prime location and über chic space design, to ensure that a maximum number of art collectors and enthusiasts had access to the best photographic artworks. The main feature was the Naomi Campbell retrospective.

On September 14^th, they opened their New York City location in SoHo, on West Broadway. The Art Photo Expo Gallery is in the former shoe store of Natalie Portman, where she sold limited edition shoes. Currently I have six of my father’s photographs from the 60's of Ali, Elvis and the Beatles hanging along with the works of some of the finest examples of fashion photography. My father’s collection hangs in the vintage section along with the works of Helmut Newton and photographs of Bridget Bardot, Steve McQueen and Alfred Hitchcock.

I attended the opening with two close friends, Ronna Gradus and Jill Bauer, they are currently in discussion with HBO about their documentary, “Sexy Baby”.

www.artphotoexpo.com

A DIRECTOR WITH A MISSION - PROJECT:NEW BORN

In creating Bella Famiglia Photography, it’s chief mission is to photograph women pregnant in the lush garden in my backyard, I also wanted to contribute my photography in a way that would benefit in a meaningful way. I was introduced to Schatzi Kassal, one of the founders of Project: New Born.

Project: New Born is a nonprofit philanthropic organization founded in 1973 by a group of committed and dynamic women who devoted themselves to raising much-needed funds for maintenance and support of the Project: New Born Neonatal Special Care Center, a facility for imperiled premature and high risk infants located at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital. In 1986 Project: New Born was joined by the Infantry, an offspring group of young energetic men and women, dedicated to the same goals and pledged to support the annual funding necessary to provide the best possible care for the babies.

Schatzi gave me a tour of the unit one Saturday morning, and it was remarkable how the facility welcomed us to the unit. You could tell Project New Born has been a great contributor to the success and survival rate. We walked through the three units watching the tiniest babies I have ever seen breath and wiggle their tiny fingers and toes. But what tears your heart out is the sight of the mother and father fixed in a stare, watching the child for hours, some throughout the night.

This is when I got my vision, I wanted to help and my idea felt right! I want to shoot a series of portraits that will line the hallway leading to the unit. The portraits will be of former patients in the unit, remember PNB has been involved for over thirty years. These former ICU survivors will be holding recently released infants. The message: yes, although this is a scary time to watch your newborn child in an incubator, the message from the images in the hallway will say, yes there are plenty of happy endings in this unit. A message of hope!

Together with Dr. Teresa del Morel and Paula Lalinde, Ph.D., we plan to start the project soon. Everyday the unit sees another baby and that only means there is another mother and father that need to be reminded of HOPE!

At our last meeting they were generous and asked me to join the Board of Directors of Project: New Born. I have also been named a "Saturday Ambassador", if you would like a tour please contact me.

MERCEDES-BENZ FASHION WEEK SWIM, SOUTH BEACH

My annual dip into swimwear fashion photography at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim: models on the runway at the Raleigh Hotel on South Beach.

GIL GREEN: MUSIC VIDEO DIRECTOR

Gil Green, urban storyteller, has directed the videos for some of music best know acts: Linkin Park, Fat Joe, Lil Jon, Trick Daddy, Pit Bull, Flo Rida, and Lil Wayne. But I rolled up on Gil as he was directing a video in one of Miami’s toughest neighborhoods in Liberty City Green had taken over an inner-city project using the residents as extras for a video he was shooting of Black Dada’s remix single “Imma Zoe”.

Between takes Gils was easy to approach and work with for my photograph. With no shortage of funky props, I eyed the candy red classic convertible, and had Green jump in the back seat and pose but only after he removed the cast from his injured arm. Never looking through the camera I held it high over my head to capture Green immersed in the red seat, as you can tell he is very tall with arms that outreached the beam of the car.

Green isn't looking for the stereotypical rap video, "There is a way to think and step out of the box and interpret the music in a positive way."

After the short shoot I followed him as he directed the cameras rolling through the complex and getting the residents to just be themselves as the rapper and music turned the place into a mid-afternoon dance club.

THE JET SETTERS

MIAMI SOCIAL, the latest reality-show from BRAVO about our own South Beach. Cameras follow seven of SoBe socialites as they hang out every bit of their personal, professional life and then watch them morph into party animals at night. The show does a great job of making South Beach look sexy and beautiful; and yeah if your watching the show in Kansas you would be thinking, “Wow, let me get some botox pumped into my forehead and jet-off to SoBe.” I had a photo session with three of the cast members, Ariel, Sorah and Hardy, at the roof top pool at the Gansevoort South Hotel Spa on South Beach. Up close, real nice, easy to work with and very polite, but on the show I’m not sure they would invite me into their VIP section at the club.

Then there was Paris; we spent the afternoon together at the U.S. Federal courthouse in Miami. Paris Hilton, the ultimate jet setter who probably wouldn’t invite the MIAMI SOCIAL cast into her VIP section, was being sued by film investors; who claim she failed to promote the DVD release of her 2006 film Pledge This. And with Paris, the coverage was not about the court case; it was about her choice of shoes, “what did Paris wear to court today”. I think my picture illustrates that her shoes look a size too big, a little too much room in the heel.