Aug
07
2013
This is Downtown Miami looking North from the Four Seasons Hotel.
At 789 feet, and comprised of 70 floors, the prestigious Four Seasons is the tallest building in Miami (and all of Florida for that matter). What you see here is the view from an in-construction penthouse on the 67th floor.
I drove about 3 hours for this shot and arrived just in time for the sunset (the ride took a bit longer than I anticipated). The hotel interior is amazing and quite large; I ended up getting lost a couple of times before I finally made it to where I needed to be (there are multiple lobbies). I was a little under the gun and worried I might lose the light, but fortunately it was a quick ride up to the penthouse after everything was squared away with security. I remember seeing the view for the first time and thinking “this is going to be good.” It was worth the drive as you can see here. I shot for a couple of hours and have a few different looks of this scene as well as a westward looking view of the city I plan on posting in the future.
To give you an idea of what this hotel is like, I took a wrong turn on the way out of the parking and ended up in the valet section where I found a Maserati, Bentley and a Rolls Royce all parked next to one another!
Aug
07
2013
This is downtown Miami as seen from the Vizcayne Building – an exclusive luxury condominium building home to Miami’s elite (Dwayne Wade calls it home).
This was a tough shoot. Rain was pouring down that night, but I had worked out permission to be on top of the building and didn’t want to give up on the shot. So I waited and waited with an assistant (thank you Marcos Iturribeitia!) for breaks in the rain. We had gotten there an hour before sunset, so we had time to watch the weather. The weather radar indicated that we should get some breaks. So we waited. My target was blue hour so we really had 1.5 hrs. With nothing else to do, we just stood around a rooftop maintenance room cameras ready to go.
When the breaks came, we went out and setup (Marcos held an umbrella over the camera the entire time because the breaks came and went.) He also kept me from falling over the edge. The wall was maybe 2-3 feet high and it was slippery up there (not to mention I kept tripping over the rain drains.
Fun fun fun. I remember seeing the edge of the building whenever I closed my eyes that night. I got in late, slept a couple of hours then went out to shoot at the Deering Estate.
All’s well that ends well :)
Nov
28
2012
Disney’s new Fantasyland at Walt Disney World in Orlando will be fully open on December 6th featuring two new areas that will double the current size of Fantasyland: the Enchanted Forest and Storybook Circus. Storybook Circus with the new Dumbo Ride and Barnstormer (a Goofy based coaster) is already open. The Enchanted Forest will open next week.
The image above was taken just outside Beast’s Castle in the Enchanted Forest a few weeks ago.
