about me
I have been a professional photographer for 20 years. During this time, I have shot virtually everything. I started out with my mother's Pentax ME Super, then bought a Pentax K-1000 (which I ended up trading for my first web site design); and after finishing College, got a job at a newspaper and did the "photojournalist" thing for three years.
I slowly started moving towards Advertising photography, and somehow turned into a successful commercial photographer in my native Venezuela. I enjoyed shooting people the most and was praised for my Portrait work. I shot Ads for Sony, Nike, Heinz, Kraft, Absolut, Polar, etc,etc... which won awards in the Cannes, New York Festivals, ANDAs...I guess you can say I was commercially successful at it, as I lived a nice, decent life and still got to do photography, which at the end of the day beats any other way of making a living.
Then digital photography came about, and I found myself surrounded by "colleagues" of every age and walk of life. All of a sudden everybody wanted to be a photographer or was already one. My dentist, my lawyer, my urologist, my landlord, even my clients where now photographers themselves. Everyone had a son or daughter who was so talented I just had to see their work. Of course, they took nice pictures, but fortunately, there is so much more to being a photographer....
No matter how far (or early) into one's career, it is of the utmost importance to assume it as a way of life, to give your eye permission to explore freely, letting your subconscious mind peacefully devote itself to putting on images what made you become attracted to photography in the first place. After 20 years, I still feel I am at the beginning of this adventure, that my best photographs are still to be taken, that I still have so much to learn and explore.
I am a graduate of The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a BA in Communications.
I am based in Miami Beach, and available for local and worldwide assignments.
Rodolfo Benitez
MY VISION
Taking pictures is fun. To hide behind a little black box and play the game of immortalizing passing realities is fascinating. I feel privileged to be able to make a living shooting photographs and therefore try to take advantage of every chance I get to meet people and take their picture. I prefer to photograph people due to the thrill that a frozen gesture, an expression or a human movement can bring. It could be a professional model, a baby, a passerby, an athlete, an artist or a character barely distinguishable on the frame: to be able to transform 1/125 second of human life onto a new reality that will exist forever on a sheet of photographic paper is an irresistible act of magic that brings a unique and different outcome everytime.Good photography is intimately related to the shooter's ability to keep "alive" the piece of reality he or she is trying to capture. There lies the difference between a "nice" photo and one that magically evoques new feelings and sentiments, defying all logical explanation. This "life" extinguishes itself very quickly; therefore, one must be well prepared to be able to capture it: camera ready, light measured, vantage point selected,etc. Taking any kind of photograph requires some sort of technical display; it is important for the photographer to acquire an intuitive capacity to handle the various pieces of equipment in order to avoid letting the photograph "die" between lens changes and repetitive light readings. I believe in the economy of means, on working fast and not letting the creative impulse get lost among technicalities. Many of my favorite pictures have been taken with a tripod and light coming through a window. I love to walk around with my Leica M6 and 50mm lens, nothing else, pure photography.