2 Days of Street Photography in South Beach
A Photographer’s Guide To South Beach, Miami
The Colony Hotel on Ocean Drive in South Beach, Miami. Taken on the Fujifilm GFX 100S II.
INTRO
I recently went down to Miami with my friend Kyler Steele to work on some photo & video content for a project with Fujifilm. We got a chance to spend a couple days to focus on photographing the South Beach area, and ultimately got to visit some iconic Miami photography locations.
When it comes to shooting street photography during travel, I try to let my eye and intuition take me on foot where they want to go. And on this trip, we did just that. Though we had some ideas in mind and had a few locations we wanted to see (I never go anywhere without a couple Google Maps pins in mind), we really just explored on foot and followed the light.
In this post, I’ll give you a brief overview of some of the locations and areas we explored, show you some of the photos we got, and also, give you some tips on how to reduce your expenses when visiting this historic area of Miami.
First, let’s have a look at some of the places we focused on during this visit.
ART DECO DISTRICT
One of the places we spent the most time was the Art Deco District, where you can find… you guessed it, Art Deco architecture. This is where you’ll find a lot of the classic Miami Beach scenes, and that beautiful pastel aesthetic that everyone knows and loves. In this district, the two main areas I would focus on are Ocean Drive & Collins Avenue.
Ocean Drive
For lack of a better term, this is the “main” place to get good shots in South Beach, especially if you want the classic pastel motels or vintage cars in your shots.
The two best times to shoot here, in my opinion, are either earlier in the day or right after sunset for blue hour.
In the early day, you’ll get direct sunlight right on the hotel fronts, which is how you get the “pastel” photos.
At blue hour, the neon signs should be on, but you should still have enough light to shoot these scenes handheld.
Hotels
The Starlite sign, photographed in late morning, with direct sunlight beaming on the building (aiding in achieving the “pastel” look).
The hotels were the thing of most interest to me personally. Most of the hotels in South Beach and the Art Deco district have very distinct looks - pastel paint, classic neon signs. Tip: to get the best pastel shots, figure out the time of day the specific hotel you have in mind will be getting hit with direct sunlight (for most, it is going to be in the morning and early day). I find that you get better pastel photos with “front lighting.”
Cars
On an average day you’ll likely see a handful of classic cars, but coupled with South Beach as a backdrop, you end up with shots that feel like time travel.
Collins Avenue
This is the other “main” street that we focused on during our stay. Just like Ocean Drive, this street has tons of incredible hotel fronts, cars, and people to photograph.
South Beach/South Pointe Beach
Of course, a visit to South Beach means… you also need to visit the beach itself. I’ve seen almost every inch of coastline in the United States so far, and this beach was definitely one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. You can find this beach parallel to the Art Deco District, making it super convenient to bounce back and forth between there and the beach. Here’s just a few of the things we focused on when we walked along the beach, and down to the pier on it’s South end.
South Beach Skyline - From The Beach
Lifeguard Towers
South Pointe Park Pier
This spot is one you definitely need to have on your list. The pier is concrete, and easy to walk on, offering views of the skyline of South Beach, the Miami skyline in the distance, and also a ton of street photography opportunities. Off the side of it, you can also find a rock jetty. PLEASE BE CAREFUL. I almost fell multiple times climbing out onto it… but I got my favorite shots of the trip. We chatted with a couple of kids we met there, and they were telling us fishing stories.
Cruise Line Ships
What Camera Gear Should You Bring?
On this trip, we were actually doing project work for Fujifilm, so we were equipped with a couple cameras, mainly the Fuji X-T50 & the GFX 100S II.
Obviously, since we had both, we definitely put them both to work on this trip, but personally, I prefer travelling lighter. If I were to return, I’d probably only bring one camera, and pick something smaller.
My favorite is the Fujifilm X-T5, which I’ve found to be a really good hybrid for photo & video. Its small, and I’ve got my lens selection dialed as well, where I can cover most photo trips with just the X-T5 and two main lenses, a “kit” 18-55 and a prime for low light (usually the 23mm f/1.4).
For you, I’d recommend just a single body (smaller mirrorless camera preferred) and just one lens (and maybe an extra prime for low light). In my opinion, you’ll get more out of the trip if you pack light and just walk around South Beach a LOT.
Parking, Lodging & Other Tips
Trust me, I’m all about budget travel tips. For affordable parking in South Beach, I recommend parking a few streets away from Ocean Drive, since street parking in that area will be hard to come by, and any of the garages you find on or directly adjacent to the busier sections of Art Deco will be really expensive.
On both days we visited, we parked about 4 blocks away from Ocean Drive and paid 9$, then 11$, for around 5-6 hours of exploring time. Many of the garages off the main strip will have hourly rates, which will come out much cheaper than paying the flat fee of those expensive garages closer to the beach.
The same is true for food, snacks, and lodging. We stayed about 30 minutes away in a neighborhood of Miami, where we were able to get cheaper food options, and a much cheaper hotel than what would be available in say Downtown Miami or directly in South Beach.
When To Visit:
I went in early December, and I found a good balance between foot traffic for some “human presence” in my photos but enough space where you could actually get clean compositions.
As far as traffic goes, during this visit we were spending a few days there over a weekend, and I cannot complain too much about the traffic going into and out of South Beach. We took the MacArthur Causeway in and out each day, and hit traffic on it everytime, but it wasn’t stand still.
All this said, Spring & Summer in Florida will definitely attract lots of people to the beach areas, so if you’re going to visit during those times, plan ahead for extra traffic.
For our photos, we got up a little earlier in the day, and found that the foot traffic was at an optimal level (for photography) in the morning, before noon/1PM.
As you approach the evening, especially on the weekends, it gets really crowded, so you may have travel getting cleaner looking compositions of the architecture, hotels, etc.
Nonetheless, the weather is beautiful year round, so I don’t think you’ll find yourself disappointed with a visit regardless of the time of year.
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