Episode 7: On location in Miami, FL! First wedding workshop, Wynwood and Art Basel adventures, app recommendations.

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Transcript

esteban 0:00

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Switching Lengths. We're in, well, this is our first episode that we view, like, actually on.

mandy 0:11

Yes, which has been a, what's that called?

esteban 0:14

On location. On

mandy 0:15

location. Yeah.

esteban 0:16

Yeah. Which is sort of like the next step, right? So now we're doing video, we're having drinks and we're actually traveling. We're on a little traveling. So we want to get everybody. To travel with us.

mandy 0:28

Yeah, and

esteban 0:29

they kind of get an idea of what

mandy 0:30

and it's been our vision all along and we're finally Finally

esteban 0:33

happening. Yes, so it's been fun. Where are we right now? Tell us

mandy 0:37

we are South Beach, Miami, Florida

esteban 0:40

We're in Southeast Miami.

mandy 0:41

It's sunny

esteban 0:42

and it's an amazing day

mandy 0:43

in your s1 go

esteban 0:44

and I'm s1 Gil and you are

mandy 0:47

Mandy Right,

esteban 0:48

Mandy, right, and we're the hosts of what's our podcast called

mandy 0:52

switching? been to any drinks Yes. Switching lenses. Switching lenses. Switching lenses.

esteban 0:57

Uh, so now we're officially on location in Miami and we are here. We just finished up a, a workshop a couple of days ago, right? So, so we had a workshop a couple of days ago. This is the second, second or third time that we, we are in Miami. Um.

mandy 1:15

Third time?

esteban 1:15

Yes. When we did the workshop, we decided, hey, you know what? We love going to Art Basel. Art Basel is one of our favorite places to go to. It's a really amazing time. Uh, it's basically just Art Week in Miami. And as artists, we tend to appreciate walking around and looking at art, a lot of fashion, a lot of different things.

mandy 1:35

Yeah,

esteban 1:35

um, and then we did the workshop and then now we spent the last four or five days

mandy 1:40

the weekend.

esteban 1:41

Yeah,

mandy 1:41

basically Yeah,

esteban 1:42

just hanging out our Basel. So we have a lot of stuff to cover. We have so much Yes

mandy 1:50

So we got here on Tuesday, I think.

esteban 1:53

Yes.

mandy 1:54

For our workshop on Wednesday, our very first The Wedding Day Workshop.

esteban 1:58

Yes, The Wedding Workshop. The

mandy 2:00

Wedding Workshop. Which is

esteban 2:00

something that we've also been talking about for a while now and trying to introduce it. And this is our first sort of trial.

mandy 2:06

Mm hmm.

esteban 2:07

Um, it was awesome. Yeah, it was

mandy 2:10

awesome.

esteban 2:10

I had a really good time. I, I, um, We rented a cool Airbnb

mandy 2:14

in the Wynwood area. You know, that's the, it's the

esteban 2:20

artsy Brooklyn Arts. Yeah. The hipster area of Miami.

mandy 2:24

Yeah.

esteban 2:24

Um, it's not, it's rough Brooklyn though.

mandy 2:26

Yeah. It's a little rough around the edges. Very art. Very Brooklyn. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but just, yeah, very artsy.

esteban 2:32

Yeah. So if, if you don't know what Miami is like, um, so we're in South Beach right now, which is more of like the touristy area where all the resorts are on, the hotels are, yeah. Beach, high

mandy 2:42

end beach vacation, yeah.

esteban 2:43

Yeah, and then the, the, the Wynwood area is more like a lot of murals, a lot of graffiti, a lot of cool art, colors. Mm hmm. Not that you don't have colors, because I think it's Yeah. We

mandy 2:53

have a lot of

esteban 2:54

colors here, but

mandy 2:55

By the, the, the rougher on the edges.

esteban 2:57

Yeah, which is sort of something that we, we enjoy a lot, right? Yes, we do. Especially being big fans of, of Brooklyn and going there and um We're gonna explore a lot of Brooklyn. We really love the Wynwood area. So,

esteban (2) 3:08

uh,

esteban 3:08

so we rented an Airbnb there and we, what the workshop is, is basically just an entire day of us just going through how we approach the wedding day, right? Yeah,

mandy 3:16

and it was great.

esteban 3:17

Yeah, yeah, we talked about, we talked about flat lays, posing. Uh, lighting. Getting

mandy 3:25

creative at the boring parts of the day.

esteban 3:27

Yep.

mandy 3:28

How, um, very specific techniques, um, that we can implement on the wedding day, along with some tools and stuff we can use, and lighting. Um.

esteban 3:37

What were those techniques that we saw?

mandy 3:40

We did, um.

esteban 3:41

Brownizers. Mm hmm.

mandy 3:43

We did. A lot

esteban 3:45

of natural white, which is more direct white.

mandy 3:48

Yeah.

esteban 3:48

Uh, we did some direct flash, which is very popular right now.

mandy 3:52

Why am I blanking on all of this? You taught

esteban 3:55

the workshop.

mandy 3:56

So did you. What else

esteban 3:58

did we do? Oh, we did, um, we did stroboscopic. We were, and one of the things that I really like about workshops is that sometimes you kind of discover things. So the entire group was just kind of working together towards getting what we were thinking we were going towards. And we ended up doing some stroboscopic

mandy 4:15

flash

esteban 4:15

photography, which is more experimental, which we don't generally do.

mandy 4:19

But now I think we might implement a little bit. Yeah, it was very fun. We can, we got some cool techniques and some cool results. I mean, and

esteban (2) 4:25

yeah,

mandy 4:25

I think I can see us implementing it and definitely in receptions going forward, probably.

esteban 4:32

Yeah, it looks really cool and I'm looking forward to using it during the actual wedding where we can put it in a practice. But what overall is, it was a great day. I loved, I loved the attendees. I loved the, the people. Mm-hmm I got to meet my friend Mason, whom I've known for like eight years. And I've never met him. It just

mandy 4:48

feels so weird to say, my friend, I've known, but I've never met him.

esteban 4:52

I think that's the beauty of it, is that sometimes, especially with like the photography communities, and why I love going to like conferences and stuff, because you see people that you don't generally see all the time. No it's very different. And seeing him, it's just kind of one of those like, is he going to be the same? Because I talk to him pretty regularly, like they're like.

mandy 5:12

Yeah apparently they talk on the phone and stuff, so it's just.

esteban 5:15

He's actually my boyfriend.

mandy 5:17

That sounds like it.

esteban 5:18

Yeah. Um, even

mandy 5:19

on FaceTime and

esteban 5:21

Yeah. Yeah. We help each other out. We all, we both work very differently. We have, we obviously work in different markets, but mm-hmm Different styles. Yeah. And he's helped me out things gearhead that sound like

mandy 5:30

for both of you guys? Yeah. Based on the day spend when you bought.

esteban 5:35

He, he is awesome. He just has a ton of gear and he loves film. So as much as, as we do so. It's really nice to connect with people that are very like minded, especially when it comes to gear, which we'll get to later on, because I want to talk about some of the stuff that we Yeah, we have a tech time

mandy 5:48

for today.

esteban 5:48

Yeah. It's still

mandy 5:50

bothering me that I can't think of the other techniques we taught. It's literally like my mind is like Well, we taught flat

esteban 5:57

lays, we taught

mandy 5:58

The stuff, what did we do during the shoot with the models?

esteban 6:01

We did a lot of direct, direct sun. We did motion.

mandy 6:04

Motion, yeah, we did a lot of motion. Yeah, that's right. We did

esteban 6:06

reflection shots.

mandy 6:07

Oh yeah, looking for reflections like in nature and on. Or, nature's a loose term in the environment.

esteban 6:16

Well yeah, I mean Because there was

mandy 6:17

nothing about the reflections we found that were natural.

esteban 6:19

Yeah, I think They were just

mandy 6:20

already existing.

esteban 6:21

I think that's one of the cool things that in the presentation that we, um, that we did is that sometimes when you think of reflections, you automatically gravitate towards, like, this, this, and this. Bye. mirror and

mandy 6:30

phone thing. Yeah, and everyone kind of knows that. But there's

esteban 6:33

reflections everywhere. There's reflections on water, there's reflections on the walls, there's reflections on a mirror.

mandy 6:38

Yeah,

esteban 6:39

there was like a little, like, little post on the photo. Honestly, little ledges,

mandy 6:41

like, you can find a reflection to either create an effect or to actually have a mirror effect.

esteban 6:47

And you found a really cool pole, like a post. Yeah, just like,

mandy 6:50

again, we're in Wynwood, so there's art stuff everywhere. Yeah,

esteban 6:53

there was like broken pieces of glass on a mosaic,

mandy 6:56

yeah.

esteban 6:56

Yep, and you photographed them with the reflection. Um, and

mandy 7:01

then.

esteban 7:01

And then, as a good observation of how we worked together during the day, like, you did that, and then I was like, oh, I want to try something else. You so much

mandy 7:07

better.

esteban 7:07

Well, I made it different, so, now I incorporated two different techniques. You did. So now you have the The reflection and then you have motion. So I had everybody walk by and I made sure that I implemented the whole motion thing. So I went to a lower shutter speed. I did the reflection and then while people were walking by, so it came out really cool. So both shots look really cool, but it's just like during the day we were able to get two different shots from different perspectives and we implement the different things, but all started from you seeing that little reflection there. And like I said, it doesn't have to be like the, even like when I teach, uh, Like the motion stuff. I feel like everyone always thinks that there's only one way of doing it. Like you have the couple here, the wedding party walking across, but there's so many ways to do that.

mandy 7:50

We almost never do that.

esteban 7:52

And there's just so many ways that you can implement. And that's the beauty of it, that you're just teaching a technique, but you want the attendees and people to implement it in their own way.

mandy 8:01

However makes sense for the story they're telling. Yeah.

esteban 8:05

So,

mandy 8:05

yeah. And we have a couple more coming up. So then when that one was successful, so we're doing it again.

esteban 8:09

Yep. So we're going to be in Dallas. Yeah. Next month,

mandy 8:14

February 1st,

esteban 8:15

end of next month. Or yeah. Well,

mandy 8:17

you know,

esteban 8:18

it's basically

mandy 8:19

next month.

esteban 8:19

Yeah. And, uh, we're doing it in the same location that Imaging USA is happening. So you don't have to be an attendee there, but if you, if you are,

mandy 8:29

it's yeah, bonus thing you can sign on to and you don't have to leave the hotel. So very convenient.

esteban 8:34

And it's in a suite in the hotel. Um, and then we'll do the same thing. We'll do an entire day of, uh, I'm just talking about how we approach the day. Yeah,

mandy 8:43

demo.

esteban 8:43

Yeah. Yeah. A little

mandy 8:46

bit of hands on. Right. Not a lot, but a little bit.

esteban 8:48

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and then we're also going to be in Vegas.

mandy 8:52

In Vegas. March, I think it's the 14th. March 14th. Yeah. If not, it's that weekend. The Saturday. So.

esteban 8:57

Yep. For WPVI. Um, I'm going to be teaching at WPVI, but I'm going to be teaching in Spanish. So if you

mandy 9:03

want English instruction, if you want to learn from us in English,

esteban 9:07

there's no other, other way than to sign up for the workout. Uh, so make sure that you sign up for it and you can find them on SteelHoleFunSociety. com if you go to workshop. Can you give

mandy 9:16

us a little demo of like, what it'll be like for your class at WPPI?

esteban 9:21

No.

mandy 9:22

But you can. Just tell me something in Spanish.

esteban 9:26

Um, Dónde está la biblioteca? Okay. What, um. Do you know what that means?

mandy 9:36

It has something to do with teaching, with school.

esteban 9:39

Well, yeah, it's where's the library. Oh. It's like the one thing that people learn in the United States when they are in Spanish class. Okay. Where's the library? That's really one of the

mandy 9:48

first.

esteban 9:48

Yeah, it's like everyone always says. Don't you

mandy 9:50

don't you learn where the bathroom is?

esteban 9:52

Donde esta el baño? Well, you go to the Bathroom in the biblioteca.

mandy 9:57

Oh, actually the pool. You Americans are so weird.

esteban 10:04

Oh Man Yeah,

mandy 10:06

okay. Yeah, so that's the workshop. So it was great. I think Yeah, I think that was it. Oh, I wanted to I wanted to say something else about the Our Airbnb experience in the workshop. I knew I was going to forget this and that's why I wrote down a note.

esteban (2) 10:22

Yeah.

mandy 10:23

So, we stayed there for two nights. And the first night, we were getting ready for the workshop, we're like, hey, we're in a shower. And he went to go turn on the water to take a shower. She's Um, and like 20 minutes later he yelled like, It's still that hot! And I went to check it out, we looked at it, we're touching the water, it's still pretty cold, like no sense of warmth. Uh, and he said maybe you should like, message the people from the Airbnb. And I'm like, well let's just take a look first. We looked around to try and find like a hot water tank, or, you know, something that we could do on our own. We couldn't find anything. We tried another bath there's like three bathrooms. We tried all the bathrooms. We could not get hot water. So I ultimately decided to text the host for the Airbnb and said, is there a trick to getting this hot water to work? So pretty quickly they responded and said, Nope, just let her run for a while. I'm like, okay, like how long is a while? I'm like, by this point it is well over 20 minutes, probably half an hour. So I messaged back and said, it's been at least 20 minutes. And they said, okay, send the video.

esteban (2) 11:33

The video. The

mandy 11:34

video.

esteban (2) 11:34

Not a video. A video. Send us the video.

mandy 11:38

And we were just like, what? The video? Like, we have to prove that we can't get hot water at this Airbnb? Like, we're getting pretty frustrated at this point because we're like, we're gonna be Yeah. We just traveled all day. We're gonna be disgusting.

esteban 11:52

For the workshop. For

mandy 11:53

the workshop. And, so, we're like laughing our asses off, and I'm recording a video, and he's like, touching the water, I wish you, I wish you could play it right now. I

esteban 12:03

agree, we could add it to it.

mandy 12:05

But

esteban 12:05

we wanted to be smart asses because we were like, what the fuck, why do we

mandy 12:08

have to prove that the water's cold? Yeah.

esteban 12:10

Like, how do,

mandy 12:11

and how do we do it? Yeah.

esteban 12:12

Yeah,

mandy 12:12

the water's fucking cold.

esteban 12:14

So, You need

mandy 12:14

a video proof? We'll give you a video proof.

esteban 12:17

You're recording the video, and I want, I touch the one I want. Oh, so cold, brr. We sent that to them. Like, thinking that, oh yeah, like, we're being smart asses, like, whatever. Like, you guys are idiots, like, why would you even, like, request a video? But, yeah,

mandy 12:34

like, I don't know if you guys have seen the reels or whatever of, like, The delivery app service is asking for proof that people didn't get their food, and it's them like standing at the porch with their like arms wide open or like No food, hungry, and that's exactly what we felt like. We were like, no hot water, Stinky, can't shower. So I send this to them and a couple of minutes later I get a text back that says, try turning the faucet the other direction. And

esteban 13:03

we turned it the other direction. And

mandy 13:04

I went out to the bathroom, and looked at the faucet, and I was like, We, all of them, we had tried three different faucets, four different faucets, all of them we turned the wrong direction.

esteban (2) 13:15

Yeah.

mandy 13:16

Yeah, and at no point did we hit our troubleshooter and did we think we should turn it the other way.

esteban 13:21

Immediately hot water.

mandy 13:23

Yeah, immediately. Come

esteban 13:24

out. Yeah. And that's when you feel the world just crumbling down. Like, wow, I, maybe I shouldn't be such a smartass.

mandy 13:34

Yeah.

esteban 13:34

But yeah, we were wrong. And, uh, the water. And the water

mandy 13:37

was hot. And we turned every faucet the wrong direction. Yep. And then I felt so bad for sending them that smartass video and thought, Oh, we're going to get a horrible review. So then I played really stupid and I sent a text message back that was just like, Oh, that's how the faucet works. Thank you so much for the help. Have a great night. Yeah. And they responded with, you're welcome, with a smiley face.

esteban 13:59

Yep, so that was fun.

mandy 14:01

Oh, man. Yeah embarrassing and fun. And yeah, we should definitely like quit that video in here

esteban 14:08

Yes, it was pretty funny. And we thought it was hilarious. Well, we realized that we were completely wrong.

mandy 14:12

Yeah,

esteban 14:13

so Yeah, so that was that was the Airbnb Yeah, it was a great experience. The Airbnb was Was nice, kind of a weird host, but whatever. They were like, they were like basically outside our door at 11 when we were supposed to check out.

mandy 14:29

1053.

esteban 14:29

Yeah.

mandy 14:30

Knocking.

esteban 14:30

They're like, oh yeah, I mean, and I, I guess we just figured out that it's, it's our Basel week, so they probably think that there's a ton of parties and stuff. And like, if I have to clean up all day, but it was kind of weird.

mandy 14:40

You wait until checkout time to see if they've left, not earlier.

esteban 14:44

Yeah, yeah.

mandy 14:45

But anyway,

esteban 14:46

that was great. Yeah, it was great. And then the next part of the trip, which.

mandy 14:51

South Beach, so totally new area. Yeah, so we,

esteban 14:55

traffic is crazy. So you kind of have to stay within South Beach for Arpozol, right? Yeah, because we don't

mandy 14:58

want to travel, like the commute. I mean, like 15 minutes turns into an hour.

esteban 15:02

Yeah, I mean, we went up with my cousin Dan and his girlfriend yesterday, and it took them almost an hour to get here. And they said that it usually takes them 15 minutes

mandy 15:10

to get to the

esteban 15:11

hotel. Yeah, I'm just from Miami Beach, yeah. Right, so, um, so yeah, so we moved into South Beach. Uh, we stayed at Hotel Travail. Trav Travail. Which is a really, really cool hotel. Tiny

mandy 15:21

little boutique hotel. Kind of like, further out than how we usually stay, but

esteban 15:27

Yeah, which, and it was fine. I mean, I liked the idea of just kind of Well, it's a little bit farther than like the, the The

mandy 15:34

central area, to be like the stay in. But it was so cool. It's a really nice

esteban 15:37

hotel. The, the host, uh, Flo was awesome.

mandy 15:42

We

esteban 15:42

talked to him for like a half hour. Talking about photography and like apps that he should use. We showed him the insects camera. We took a picture of him and gave it to him. He was like, I'm going to put this on my hand.

mandy 15:52

I mean, it's like we talked about a thousand different things. Which

esteban 15:54

leads me to like, sometimes after like traveling and even like the experience that we had at the restaurant yesterday, even though you have like a, you might have like a really bad experience, but sometimes just a matter of just like being friendly to staff. Forget you along way, right? Uh, we were in New York City a couple weeks ago and we were at the Graduate Hotel. We booked a super last minute. We were literally in the car on our way to New York and we booked the Graduate Hotel, which we love because we've used the Graduate in New Haven and if, if, if you guys don't know what a Graduate Hotel is, it's basically just a themed restaurant from like all the Ivy League schools.

mandy 16:29

Oh,

esteban 16:30

right. Hotel. Yeah. Uh, that's themed after all the Ivy League schools.

mandy 16:34

Yeah. So they're like wherever. So this was near. Wait.

esteban 16:37

Oh, I forgot what school it was. There were schools in New York. Fordham? I don't know. No. It was one of those schools. Um, but we stayed at the one that's themed after Yale. Mm hmm. And we love it. Uh, so we stayed at the one in New York City. And we walked in. We just kind of made friends with the Mm hmm. the lobby first and the hosts. Yeah. And she upgraded us. So, like, they're, like, one of their nicest rooms. Yeah. And it was amazing. Um, so just being nice to people will bring you a long way.

mandy 17:02

Yeah.

esteban 17:02

So And also having a tripod in. Yeah, also her

mandy 17:04

knowing that you were going to record a podcast

esteban 17:07

episode

mandy 17:07

that, well, it didn't happen, but.

esteban 17:08

Yeah,

esteban (2) 17:09

but we still got my

mandy 17:10

tripod. But she was like, oh, you're recording here? Yeah. You're getting the best view, and it really was an amazing view of

esteban 17:16

Manhattan. So, travel tip.

mandy 17:18

Yes, carry a tripod in your backpack. Carry

esteban 17:20

a tripod in your backpack, and then when they ask you, are you a photographer or videographer, just say, no, I'm a podcaster, and I do travel. I'm a travel podcaster. And we'd

mandy 17:25

be recording in this. Yeah.

esteban 17:27

Yeah, we're going to be doing, uh, and they love good publicity and it doesn't matter how if you have a million followers or a thousand followers, any publicity is good publicity, especially for these places that tend to, you know, they, they thrive off of, of them. But in TikTok making,

mandy 17:40

um,

esteban (2) 17:41

Yeah,

mandy 17:43

everything go viral.

esteban (2) 17:44

Yeah. Yeah

mandy 17:45

for good or bad. Really? So we know the power of the internet the power of social media and influencers, which yeah, we experienced firsthand It's also during

esteban 17:56

the week. So it's if it's during the week, then it's probably easier for you to get an upgrade too So

mandy 18:01

yeah, does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.

esteban 18:04

Um, so anyway, so we moved over to South Beach We've been here for the last couple days. We did a We did a few different things. We went to our favorite restaurant down here, which is B blows The Greek restaurant, best, uh,

mandy 18:20

brussel sprouts

esteban 18:21

you'll ever have. Um, I was disappointed with one of the dishes, but then we had a salad. It was, uh, well, which kind of salad is it? I mean, it was amazing. It was also

mandy 18:29

brussel sprouts. Yeah. with other stuff, but it was amazing. So if you like Les do octopus for sure. Yeah. Octopus is delicious. I think it's my favorite.

esteban 18:36

Yeah. Yeah. Um, we went there for next, so that's kind of

mandy 18:40

a

esteban 18:41

Yeah, yeah. You

mandy 18:42

like to do.

esteban 18:42

We um, we've just been walking around doing like a bunch of different things. Yeah.

mandy 18:46

Taking in whatever, little galleries, installations, shooting.

esteban 18:51

Yeah. We went to a few exhibits. You never planned

mandy 18:53

anything. Yeah. We just wing it.

esteban 18:54

Yeah. That's, that's kind of the way that we like to do things. I mean, we have, we wanna have some sort of plan, but then we also want to make sure that.

mandy 19:02

Um,

esteban 19:02

Yeah, if you're walking around, you see something, you walk in, we walk into a party.

mandy 19:06

Oh yeah, well, we were photographing, I mean, we had our

esteban 19:08

cameras had our cameras,

mandy 19:09

we were like pretty lights, nice walkway, let's take a couple shots here, and a guy turns the corner. Uh, yeah, in our shot, we started making conversation, and then he says something about.

esteban 19:20

He's like, yeah, I'm the owner of whatever this company is, that's. I

mandy 19:23

think he's talking about a record label. It was like a tequila or something like that, yeah.

esteban 19:26

Like I own the company, like if you guys want to go into the party, go into the party, we'll want in there. And. We stayed for a couple hours.

mandy 19:33

Yeah, it

esteban 19:33

was great. And we met two Oh yeah, we made

mandy 19:35

friends, yeah. Yeah,

esteban 19:36

and that's the beauty of it. We're like, you walked in Great music, great drinks. Allowing yourself to, to, to really take chances when it comes to like going into these places. And I'm sort of an introvert when it comes to that stuff, but I love the idea of just like going in and

mandy 19:50

Yeah, and the opportunity is there to say yes.

esteban 19:52

Yeah.

mandy 19:52

Just say yeah.

esteban 19:54

We um, we went to, I guess the two biggest exhibits, Our two that were at the beach, that was like a boat exhibit, like a sunken ship exhibit, right? Oh, the installation. Yeah, the installation, sorry, on the beach. Yeah, it's

mandy 20:06

like pop up installations artists will do, so one's this, yeah, with a buried ship.

esteban 20:10

And then the other one, which is the most popular one, which is unbelievable, and we're definitely going to post some photos of it, is the elephant. Yeah, there were a hundred elephants that were migrating. They're migrating. So it's a, it's an art exhibit of a hundred life size elephants. Yeah,

mandy 20:27

I don't want to say they look like sculptures, but they're actually like, they've been formed out of, um, like, um, invasive weed in India. Um, so it's dried, but from any distance they look like they're, they're carved. Um, and what's really cool is that each one of these elephants is actually modeled off of an elephant that they were viewing in the wild. Like, they're not just elephants. Like, they are modeled off of a very specific elephant, which is amazing. Yeah. If you're looking it up, I think it's called From India with Love.

esteban 20:58

And it's a traveling exhibit, right? It is

mandy 20:59

traveling, although from what I've, we didn't do a bunch of reading on it, but from the placard and talking to a few different people, I It sounds like this is, might be the end of the road, like they're, they're sold off.

esteban 21:10

Okay, so they,

mandy 21:11

they sold them off. Yeah, I don't know. Someone else said they're going to Texas, but they're slowly disappearing off the beach, like one by one. So I think that, I think that it might be the, the end of the road for them.

esteban (2) 21:21

Yeah.

mandy 21:21

But it was incredible.

esteban 21:23

Oh, it was beautiful. I mean, I've never

mandy 21:24

been close to an elephant in real life. Um. And

esteban 21:27

just seeing like a hundred of them just all out on the beach is, is amazing. Obviously we took photos of it.

mandy 21:33

We tried to take medicine. Which is another thing, we've

esteban 21:35

talked about in another episode where you're talking about influencers and obviously you're in Miami doing Art Basel Week, there's a lot of influencers here, there's a lot of people that are within that, that realm and as soon as they see something that could potentially be a niche or something that might not be around anymore, Everyone walks to it. Just like us, right? Like we, we obviously, we wanted to get a look at it. Um, we, we took a look at it during the day. The first or second day that we were here.

mandy 22:02

Yeah, Thursday, maybe. Thursday, I think we came and saw it. Midday.

esteban 22:06

Packed.

mandy 22:07

Yeah.

esteban 22:07

Both people. They were all taking photos. You know,

mandy 22:09

it's 2 p. m. So lighting is what you imagine.

esteban 22:12

Yeah. Um, and then we decided that, you know what? Maybe we're going to have to come back. Uh, maybe during sunrise, because the sun rises right at the beach.

mandy 22:22

And maybe let's get a couple.

esteban 22:23

Yeah, and maybe hire, like, like going, getting a couple and actually photographing a couple. Um, so before, I mean, I'm kind of somebody that just jumps right into things. You're a little level headed when it comes to that. You're like, well, let's see what it looks like tomorrow during the sunrise. Yeah,

mandy 22:37

I was very much like, let's not post and be recruiting people for a shoot.

esteban 22:43

Without knowing what

mandy 22:44

we're getting ourselves into. Yeah,

esteban 22:45

and I just imagine that it would be empty because nobody in Miami wakes up that early, at least partying.

mandy 22:50

Saturday morning?

esteban 22:51

Yeah, so. Saturday morning. We woke up at 4.

mandy 22:54

30. Yeah, so sunrise is at 7, but someone thought it was 6. 30 when it was 4. 30.

esteban 23:02

So I, I have an internal clock where it wakes me up. It's been malfunctioning

mandy 23:05

like crazy. Yeah,

esteban 23:07

it wakes me up at like 6. 30. If I have to wake up at a certain time, I'm pretty good at like, yeah, you're not needing, uh, an alarm clock, but I woke up at 4 30 and I didn't even bother to look at my phone or anything and I just kind of woke her up and I'm like, all right,

mandy 23:20

we gotta get ready. We gotta get ready

esteban 23:21

to go. And she looked over to me and goes, no way. We literally just went to sleep. And I went to go look at my phone. It was 4 30 in the morning. I was like, Oh, nevermind. We're going back to sleep.

mandy 23:31

We didn't just go to sleep. But to me, it felt like I just knew there was no way I went 6 30 in the morning.

esteban 23:36

Yeah, we didn't. I mean, we would have been late, but yeah. Um,

mandy 23:40

uh,

esteban 23:40

we, yeah, then, then we, um, yeah. We came down here. We came down here right before seven. Right. The sunrise was beautiful. It

mandy 23:47

was, we could see it as soon as we like turned the corner from the hotel. It was just a beautiful red sky, but the crowd was even bigger. Bigger than the middle of the day. Crazy,

esteban 23:57

right?

mandy 23:57

Yeah. It was swarming with people.

esteban 24:01

Yeah. It was insane how many people were actually, yeah,

mandy 24:03

there.

esteban 24:03

There was more people than, than there were the other day.

mandy 24:07

And immediately I was like, holy shit. If we brought a couple here, we would have been scrooge.

esteban 24:12

We did find, we saw a couple that was going to shoot there.

mandy 24:14

That was their intention. Yeah. We

esteban 24:15

actually got their Instagram and they're like, Oh, we're going to contact you about our, uh, our wedding.

mandy 24:19

Yeah.

esteban 24:20

Um, but yeah, it was a mad house. You

mandy 24:22

could not, Like, I mean, you could get shots, but you're not going to get shots that are going to look Nothing like

esteban 24:27

super creative. Nothing cool. Like, you're probably just like, really doing a lot of close

mandy 24:31

ups. You're lucky if you get something without someone stepping in front of the camera, basically.

esteban 24:35

Yeah. Yeah. And that happens a lot.

mandy 24:37

Yeah. And the amount of people, like, you couldn't even I don't think at any point did we see see an elephant in its entirety.

esteban (2) 24:45

Without anybody around it. Without someone blocking

mandy 24:47

part of it. Like, there, like, there's a hundred of them.

esteban (2) 24:50

Yeah.

mandy 24:50

And I don't think a single time did we see one, like, that didn't have other people blocking some part of it, um, because it was so thick of people at that time.

esteban 24:58

And it's tough because you want, you know that the, the attraction are the elephants, but I, I kind of also see, Love the idea of kind of pivoting a little bit and saying, all right, well, you know what, there's a million people here, like, let's just focus on the people. So I started thinking photos of the people. I started taking photos of the elephants with the people. This is the exact

mandy 25:17

opposite mentality that I usually have.

esteban 25:18

Well, she was super cranky. Fuck these people. Yeah. I don't want any of these people in

mandy 25:23

my shot. I

esteban 25:24

was like, snap out of it.

mandy 25:26

Well, and that just made me so much angrier because I had just finished trying to take a shot where he stepped in front of me. And I couldn't get the shot because he stepped in front of me and I was just like, You're one of them.

esteban 25:36

Yeah, but that's what I said. I said, I said, snap out of it. These people are doing exactly the same thing that we're doing. Yeah, it's just,

mandy 25:43

the problem with these things is that generally, People just have no awareness.

esteban 25:48

No, no, yeah. They're, I mean, when you were taking, even like, So we, we ended up coming back. So we decided, alright, well this is cool and all, but, What would it look like? Because we've been talking about doing a long exposure. Let's go

mandy 25:59

at night

esteban 26:00

when there's no

mandy 26:01

light and maybe it will be empty and we will make our own light and we will create something cool.

esteban 26:05

And we were wrong again. We were

mandy 26:09

there till 1 a. m.

esteban 26:10

Yeah. And there was still a bunch of

mandy 26:12

people there. People in their like club outfit. Yeah. Getting

esteban 26:16

out of the club or going into the club. Yeah. And they're just

mandy 26:19

photographing

esteban 26:19

themselves with the flash. And now when you were walking towards it, you just saw these like flashing lights. Yeah. Uh. I mean, I get them at

mandy 26:27

school and I don't, I don't think like that it shouldn't be swarming with people. It's just really tough when there's no one policing it. And people aren't taking, like people are not being respectful of the, the statues, which is happening at times. Oh my god,

esteban 26:41

people like, There was a little tiny, uh, uh, elephant that people were jumping, uh, not jumping, but like, sitting on them, and I'm like,

mandy 26:48

what the trunks last night. I've seen it happen multiple times. Drones flying everywhere. Oh my god, the drone that was like, Within like 5,

esteban 26:56

5 feet above us. Yeah, 5 to 10

mandy 26:58

feet above our heads. Like,

esteban 26:58

very clearly against the law, like, you should not be flying your drones, like, that close to just, A crowd of people.

mandy 27:04

Yeah, so like. And people

esteban 27:05

just did not give a shit.

mandy 27:06

All of that stuff is what was like aggravating me, and then the fact that like, I would have like an opportunity to take a shot, and then someone would literally like, step right in front of you to take their shot, and it's just like, there was no like, There was no respect or waving or like, I heard one, there was one lady who walked by and stepped in front and was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm like, that is the first time that I had heard it in like the last like 40 minutes and it's been happening constantly. She was like the only one who was like, Oh, sorry, I stepped in front of you. Everyone else was like, get, get out of my way.

esteban 27:34

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if that's just indicative of how my BME is or, or, or just, I

esteban (2) 27:42

don't know. I feel like

esteban 27:42

everyone's kind of like in their own little world, right? Yeah. Um, so we have to work around it. We still managed to get some really cool shots. We did, we did. Somewhat technical. I think what we ended up doing is, last night when we were doing it at like 1 o'clock in the morning, we realized that there's just a lot of people, so. Well, our

mandy 27:58

plan was to go there and do some long exposures so that. anyone there would be blurred out.

esteban 28:04

Right. So that's it. Like, so we want to do long exposure. But the amount of people

mandy 28:08

there lighting.

esteban 28:09

Yeah.

mandy 28:10

Then that interfered with it because there was light trails, flashes of light, some elephants were exposed because people had them lit the whole time, some were not. And so with all that light, it made that technique challenging. And we did manage to get a few interesting shots. I'm excited to edit, but. But what we went there to do turned out there'd be another, um, challenge that we had to work around.

esteban 28:31

Yeah, and, and our, I mean, I guess the last couple of shots were I think my favorite. Yeah, I think those were the most,

mandy 28:37

um, the most wow. Yeah,

esteban 28:40

which was something that is really, I think it's only available on Panasonic cameras and on Olympus cameras, which is called the Live View

mandy 28:48

Composite.

esteban 28:49

You said composite, not composite.

mandy 28:51

I know, I said it for you.

esteban 28:54

So it's a live view composite or a composite or a composite depending on where you are in the world so what it is it basically just takes a plate image and then you could I took a flashlight or a little LumiCube thing and I painted the The elephant elephants. Yeah, and it puts them all into one shot. So it's essentially just a composite that's on in camera Uh, it's a really cool technique. Uh, we actually talked about it with Noah.

mandy 29:21

Yeah, you had a live, and I think we might have talked about it on the podcast maybe once. Yeah.

esteban 29:24

But the shots are cool. Yeah, so now we were able

mandy 29:28

to, yeah, get the elephants, some, like, context, and no people. And we positioned

esteban 29:36

ourselves with, like, the buildings in the background too, which really give it a really cool look. Um, So it's cool because you have the elephants that are light painted, and then you have the, um, the buildings in the background with like all the lights, so, um, we'll make sure to post some of the, the shots and it looks, it looks really cool.

mandy 29:52

We'll have to share one of the, we took um, Some time lapse videos as well. Yeah. And you'll be able to see the crowds we're working with.

esteban 30:00

Yeah, that is one thing that I love about when we travel is that, We like, we bring it all. So we do like, Yeah. We did 360 photos. Yeah. We did 360, um, what's it called, time lapse? Time lapse, yeah. We did a time lapse with the DJI Osmo Pocket 3.

mandy 30:16

Yeah, time lapse. We did a time

esteban 30:17

lapse with both Panasonics. Uh, we did a time lapse, uh, We didn't do a 10 list with our phones, but we were using our phone a ton. Mm-hmm. Um, which

mandy 30:26

we were, our, our, um, Ray bands

esteban 30:28

or Raybans ray bands. Yeah. We were doing a lot of Ray PTS with the Ray bands. Mm-hmm Um, I mean, it's just like being able to utilize everything. It just, it makes things a little bit more complicated, especially when you're like, when you wanna be compact about what you travel with mm-hmm But it's worth it because you get so many different perspectives.

mandy 30:45

Yeah.

esteban 30:46

And it's really cool.

mandy 30:47

It's fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even something as simple as your phone. Yeah.

esteban 30:51

As simple as your phone all the way up to shooting with a GFX medium format, uh, we shot film, we, uh, we shot with the, um, with the X Pen, uh, Jose, let me borrow his Nikon 35 TI. Which is an awesome camera. It's a little point and shoot Nikon, um, which I love because the top is made by, uh, I think by, um, Seiko.

esteban (2) 31:16

Yes. Manufactured by

esteban 31:17

Seiko. So as a watch fanatic, I love the top of that camera. If you've never seen that camera, it's just absolutely beautiful, and I'm so jealous that he has it. Um, and we shot with digital film. We, um, we went to, to Lunchester, which is an awful experience. Yeah, we

mandy 31:34

don't need to complain about that.

esteban 31:36

Yeah, that was just, Don't go, don't. No, no, no, no.

mandy 31:40

We don't need a complaints.

esteban 31:41

Don't go to, what's the place called? What's it called?

mandy 31:46

I don't know. I can't remember.

esteban 31:48

Uh,

mandy 31:49

Columbia.

esteban 31:49

It's a Colombian restaurant in Miami. It's a new one and it's awful. God awful. Three hours we got our food.

mandy 31:56

Yeah, it was, it was brutal. But we don't end to follow on a negative.

esteban 31:58

Yes. So we ended up, but we ended up going to a, like a, a car show that also had like antiques and like a bunch of different things. Market, yes. Lea Market. Yeah, a flea market. And we met some people there too. From a local camera store.

mandy 32:10

Yeah.

esteban 32:11

Which was awesome because It was really good

mandy 32:13

to talk gear in. Yeah, we bought film from

esteban 32:16

them. Um, I asked them if they could service CLA the X Pan. Yeah,

mandy 32:22

they're gonna look into it for you, which is really nice.

esteban 32:24

They had some cool cameras. She took a picture of us. She took a picture of us with a Nikon 3D camera.

mandy 32:30

Yeah.

esteban 32:30

But you basically, you take a couple of photos, there's a couple different lenses on it. And you can create a GIF out of it once you develop it. Uh, which

esteban (2) 32:36

is pretty awesome.

esteban 32:38

Um, And that was it. We went there and uh, and then as we were walking out, we saw another camera place.

mandy 32:46

Oh, oh, I was, I was, I forgot what you were referencing. We

esteban 32:49

eyed this like, this mint condition, beautiful Hasselblad 500C. I have a 500CM, which is a little bit newer. But this, that camera was in mint condition. It came with three lenses and three backs. So I'm like, there's no way that this thing is like, if this is working condition, this is like a 4, 000 camera. Um, So I go up to the guy and I'm like, hey, do you, are you, how much do you want for this? And he was like, the shutter is broken on it, so I could do like 2, 500. And I was like, even at 2, 500, like those three lenses, there's a 150, the 50, and the 80. Zeiss in mint condition with the foxes. Yeah, the

mandy 33:29

body was beautiful. It was like, there wasn't a

esteban 33:32

scratch on the body.

mandy 33:33

Yeah, it was perfect.

esteban 33:34

And he was like, but right now I could do 2, 000. And I was like, I shouldn't be spending this money. And I was like, could you do 1500? And he didn't want to, you don't know what's wrong with the camera. So if you have to, he went down as low as

mandy 33:49

18, but we still,

esteban 33:52

yeah,

mandy 33:52

we don't. Yeah.

esteban 33:53

Yeah. So I have

mandy 33:55

to walk away from beautiful things, but

esteban 33:56

yeah, it was, it was in such good condition. It was a, such a good deal. I even offered to buy just the lenses. Cause I could totally use them for my 500 CM. Um, but, but I'm sad that I walked away. But, but it was beautiful. So I got his carding kit. I forgot

mandy 34:11

to ask you about that. Is it that you regretted the spawning? Yeah,

esteban 34:14

I said that I would sleep on it and I would figure it out, but the responsible side of me, which doesn't come out very often. This is the responsible

mandy 34:24

side of

esteban 34:26

you. I really didn't think that it was a good idea to spend two grand on, on a camera that I already have that needs to be serviced. Yeah. Even if I might, like, sell other stuff. So I've been thinking about selling a bunch of other things, so. I just don't want to keep, the reason why I sell other things is because I don't want them to sit around. So I don't want this to be another thing that sits around just because I was getting a good deal on it.

mandy 34:47

And I think my mentality is sell before you buy the new thing.

esteban 34:50

Yeah, yeah, which is totally fair. Um, maybe I'll put some stuff up today and if I sell it then I'll go back and call the guy and be like, Hey, I want to take it. So.

esteban (2) 34:58

Yeah.

esteban 34:59

Because I almost told him, I was like, Alright, if I go to the bank right now and I take 1, 500 out, I'll give you cash. I'm sure he would have probably said like, alright, 1, 700 and then I would have probably been more inclined to do it. But at the end of the day

mandy 35:15

I don't think you were convinced that it was the, that you should be buying it yet. Yeah, I think that was the

esteban 35:19

biggest sell, especially as a camera that I already have.

mandy 35:22

Yeah. But

esteban 35:22

it's just a much better condition. It was just beautiful. With extra lenses, so. Um, so yeah. So that's, that's, that's that. And now I want it again. And podcast is over.

mandy 35:33

No. We're gonna call this

esteban 35:34

guy and tell him that we want it. No, just kidding.

mandy 35:37

Um, but, speaking of gear. We could probably roll into tech time a little bit.

esteban (2) 35:43

Yes.

mandy 35:44

So besides all of these devices and things that we've been shooting with this week, we've been using some very specific apps on our bones.

esteban (2) 35:52

Yes.

mandy 35:53

And I'll let you tell them about it because these are basically yours.

esteban 35:57

Uh, so for, for the apps, I mean, so I've been trying to use my phone a lot more. Now I have the newer iPhone, which we've talked about in the podcast. Um, but I really want an app that has that more like vintage, like, feel to it. Um, we've used in Vegas, Nicole showed us a, uh, it's like Hugi, H U G J I. Um, and it's a really cool app. It's almost like a disposable camera look. Um, but this app that I found, I don't know how I found it. And actually, Leo is a huge fan of it. He loves Name

mandy 36:31

is your son, your Yes. 7-year-old.

esteban 36:33

Yes. Um, and it's called 1998 cam.

esteban (2) 36:38

Mm-hmm

esteban 36:38

And you can put some really cool filters, uh, which gives it a really cool vintage look. Um, you can import photos that you take from your camera, so I do like to. I do prefer to take photos with, within the main camera and then import them to that. Yeah,

mandy 36:52

not with the apps.

esteban 36:53

Yeah, when you take it with the app, it seems like it's a little bit lower resolution. Maybe it's not quite as, like, good. Which

mandy 36:58

I think is common with a lot of apps when you're using things like Flutter. Yeah, yeah.

esteban 37:01

Um, so I, I took a lot of photos. I've been trying to utilize the portrait feature on the, on the phone because I think it's pretty good with this new phone and the new update. Um, and the 1998 cam just, it really gives off a really cool look. You can put dust in the photos. If you want that like cool vibe on the, on your photos in it, it's really cool. So, um, so that's, that's the app that I've been really loving, especially when uploading just, you know, Really quick photos to Instagram, right? You should tell them

mandy 37:26

about like, what you can do with an app. Like, how you make it look.

esteban 37:30

Yeah, there's a bunch of different filters that are vintage, some film likes. Uh, they're not all very good, but there's some really good ones that I like. You can

mandy 37:37

save your own presets?

esteban 37:38

You can save your own preset based on your settings. And you can put the date on the bottom right hand corner, on whatever corner you want. A real

mandy 37:45

90's look.

esteban 37:46

Yeah, yeah. Which is cool.

mandy 37:47

Leaks in the dust. If you do

esteban 37:49

leaks, you can do dust. Uh, I'm not a fan of the dust or the leaks. They just lose a lot of the clarity on the image, but. Yeah. But you can do that and. Yeah, it's cool. It's a

mandy 37:58

really cool effect. So we've been like playing around with that and.

esteban 38:01

Yeah. Yeah. And what other app did we.

mandy 38:04

Um, I think it was just the two.

esteban 38:06

What, what were the two?

mandy 38:08

Fuji in 1998. Uh,

esteban 38:09

Fuji in 1998. Yes. So, Fuji is

mandy 38:11

like a surprise. Fuji, you don't have any control over.

esteban 38:14

Yeah.

mandy 38:15

Fuji, you open up the app and you take the photo within the app, Um, and it spits out a photo that could have like a light leak or like whatever else. So it's like a surprise.

esteban (2) 38:24

Yep.

mandy 38:24

So, way more of that like film like experience where sometimes you don't know what you're getting. Yeah,

esteban 38:30

like it's more disposable, right? So, it looks like a disposable app, like you even like, It has a, the UX is very, like, disposable film camera like. Yeah, yeah,

mandy 38:40

like, exactly. Um, I remember correctly, I don't think you even see what you're taking the photo of. It's just, like, the back. Yeah. Like, it's very, like, yeah, you press the button, it, like, has a cheesy little, like, um, developing mode that it goes into. I think yours does the same thing, actually. Uh, and it Which I

esteban 38:54

don't like.

mandy 38:55

Right. But One of the

esteban 38:56

things I complain about all the time with the 1998 up is that when you take a photo, it goes into another screen, and it's just Pretends it's developing. Pretends like it's developing it. And it's like, I just want the photo. It's a time waster, yeah.

mandy 39:07

But yeah, so, Houdini, it's kind of like, the no control, getting that effect. Whereas the 1998 one, you can make it look how you want it to look.

esteban 39:17

Yeah.

mandy 39:17

Yeah. Which is,

esteban 39:18

which is good. So,

mandy 39:20

yeah. They're awesome to have that look if you don't have time for a disposable film camera.

esteban 39:27

Yeah,

mandy 39:27

or you don't have the money to spend on that little thing you can just use your phone to create that same Yeah, which you can

esteban 39:32

spend a lot of money on. I mean, we just went

mandy 39:34

into a store here like and we're looking at like Discontinued cameras and you still had for sale. Yeah, I don't remember what they were specifically you might remember Yeah,

esteban 39:46

so I I mean one of them was there were a few like digital ones There was like a Nikon pigtail, which I've always wanted, because what it is, is you take a photo and you get it as a projector in it, so you can project the photo onto a wall. As a big projector fan, I think it's one of the cameras I've always wanted. Um, but yeah, no, just a lot of different things that you can do. And now that everything's so popular, especially around this area too, with a lot of like the influencer stuff. They were saying,

mandy 40:12

like, those cameras were so expensive. Yeah, there's,

esteban 40:15

yeah, a camera that used to be like 200 bucks back in the day is now a thousand dollars. There's like even that camera that Jose has. It's a beautiful camera, I think it's gorgeous, but you could, you could have bought that camera for like 500 bucks years ago, and now it goes for well over 1, 000 just because it's an old film camera. So if you don't want to deal with that stuff, then

mandy 40:35

you can create the look at least.

esteban 40:37

Yeah, with a nice, nice app for it. Just shoot digital. And like I said, I always love the, we talked about that in the podcast, in the podcast too, where we can do the, uh, Panasonic cameras and include the LUTs into them and have that look well within before we even go into the into the computer. So, um,

mandy 40:55

I think that's it. Yeah.

esteban 40:57

Yeah. It's been a good trip so far. Uh, we're happy to be back. We had

mandy 41:02

a little bit of a hiatus.

esteban 41:03

Yeah.

mandy 41:03

Um, but we're back. And we'll continue on.

esteban 41:06

Yes, yeah, with video. Video is always good. We'll make sure that we post a lot of the video on our, uh, Instagram.

mandy 41:15

Yeah, some clips and stuff, yeah.

esteban 41:17

And if anybody has any suggestions or anything just feel free to reach out to us. Um,

mandy 41:21

I

esteban 41:21

think we should start

mandy 41:22

asking for travel locations, suggestions.

esteban 41:25

Yeah, if you have any locations or places that we You feel we should travel too. I think that'd be cool. Yeah. I mean, we have this, we have a ton of travel coming up, but it's mostly work travel. So yeah, maybe we can make an extra day or two depending on

mandy 41:38

how far

esteban 41:39

we are. Yeah. Cool. So with that, we will see you all next week.

mandy 41:45

Yeah. Next week.

esteban 41:46

Yeah. With another episode where we'll talk about probably something else or the same thing over and over again.

mandy 41:53

Probably something else. Hopefully. Hopefully.

esteban 41:55

Sounds good.

mandy 41:55

All right.

esteban 41:56

Talk to you later. Bye.