Miami Photographer Joshua Prezant

On a beautiful sunny, and unusually breezy day in South Florida I found myself driving down a two way road with gigantic mansions on the left and nothing but sandy beach and ocean to my right.  I was headed to the home of the prolific writer James Patterson. I was on assignment for the Washington Post Media Company to photograph James for the cover of their upcoming style section.

When I entered into his home I was immediately in awe.  Not because of the big house or the location, but because of the amazing collection of photography that he and his wife had. And when I saw the picture of James on his mantle with a signed note at the button from your pal Harry ( as in Harry Benson) I got a tad bit nervous. First off, he knew what a good picture was and second off he was pals with some of the best photographers out there. If i screwed up, I would be getting called out by the likes of Harry Benson and Elliot Erwitt!

The assignment called for a very clean background with an emphasis on James’s eyes. I had about 15 minutes with him, mostly talking photography in between shots.  It was a real treat for me to photograph a subject with such a passion for photography.

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© Joshua Prezant 2013

It is not even March and the March clips are pouring in.  Last month found miami based Joshua Prezant Photography photographing lots of high powered movers and shakers in the financial world for different financial magazine. Next clip will be of Ron Stone ( keep a look out).

Each subject that sits before my camera is a another person whom I could learn something from. And when the person sitting in front of you manages over a BILLION dollars with a superb track record of great returns over the last 30 years one pays extra attention to any tidbit of advice for making and investing money that they are willing to share with you.

Bill Dunn, of Dunn Capital was no exception.  If you invested $100,000 with his WMA program (his longest running program) would be worth more than $4 million today!  Dunn created a computer program that helped with long-term-following commodity trading back in the day when the computer program lived not on a hard drive or thumb drive, but on hundreds of IBM punch cards ( see picture in clip).

Bill Dunn was extremely patient and a easy subject to photograph. Despite some rain clouds that moved in on us, we were still able to capture the wonderful view from the back of Dunn’s Stuart, FL headquarters.   It also did not hurt that I thought he was a spitting image of Artist Chuck Close.

Opener in magazine

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cover

One of my favorite clients to work for is the Washington Post Magazine. I always know when the call comes in for an assignment that it will be enjoyable. This assignment did not disappoint. I was sent out to document the “Miami Bohemian ” art scene down in Miami. The images were going along with a first person account/ travel piece that writer Sandra Beasley was doing.

SLIDE SHOW

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Miami based photographer Joshua Prezant was recetly contracted to photograph art collectors and hoteliers Donald and Mera Rubell at their 45,000 square-foot museum and home.  The Miami art powerhouse couple are opening a new museum in Washington, DC. and we were brought in to photograph them with some of their vast art collection in the background.  The couple was great to work with and in the small window of time we had with them we were able to make an assortment of images that ended up being used by both the Miami Herald and The Washington Post.

Each paper had access to the same images and each chose different images and produced vastly different layouts.  It is great to see the different approaches that the two papers took with the picture selections and the layouts. Not sure  their is a favorite, but just happy that a bunch of teh images got used and that each publication did a great job displaying the images.

See if you have a favorite:

Washington Post

Miami Herald front

Miami Herald inside

Today I got a e-mail letting me know that a child I photographed for the Heart Gallery was recently permanently adopted.

The e-mail:

Dear Joshua, last September you too a Heart Gallery picture of Trenton, one of our children who is so medically complex the only placement we had for him was a nursing home a thousand miles from his home.  You took a beautiful picture and thanks to your help, Trenton was placed with his forever family last week.  Below are some pictures his new mom sent.  The pictures are not as good as yours but I am sure you will agree, the quality of his life has certainly improved!!!!   Thank you again for your help. Peggy

For several year now I have photographed children for the Heart Gallery in Miami and around South Florida.  It is something I look forward to every year.  Most of the time the children I photograph are older children that are normally harder to adopt.  But with Trenton, he was what many consider to be the “unadoptable” because of his severe medical conditions.

Having a photo make it to the cover of a magzine or seeing your advertising photo on a bus bench or billboard is great…. But nothing beats hearing the great news that one of the kids you photographed for the heart gallery has been placed with a loving family!  G-d bless the family that adopted Trenton.

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