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The Marlin, South Beach
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South Beach comes alive after dark with trendy nights spots lining Ocean Boulevard. The young, rich, and beautiful people come out to be seen in Miami's playground.
I had a photo assignment to Costa Rica and the writer I was working with on this trip convinced me that it would be a good use of our time and resources to make a stop over in South Beach. Her rationale was that the Costa Rica assignment had provided us with transportation through Miami and, with the investment of just a couple of additional days, we could create another travel story using very little of our own money. She had connections with the Miami CVB and they would set things up for our visit.
I was not very excited by the prospect and knew we would be tired at the end of the whirlwind soft-adventure trip through Costa Rica that included two of days of white water rafting. After being shot through Costa Rica on arrow I would just want to be headed home. Additionally, I had been to Miami and South Florida a few times before and had been roundly unimpressed.
A few years earlier I visited South Florida on another layover between a film assignment for Sobeck Mountain Travel in Peru and a photo shoot for Windjammer Cruises in the Bahamas. I spent three miserably hot, humid, July days in Miami. It was only tolerable to leave my highly air conditioned hovel around midnight. When I departed for Nausau in the Bahamas I vowed there would be no return visit to Miami.
My impressions of South Florida had been formed as a child by photos and stories my parents brought back from a vacation they had taken in Miami in the early 60's. That, and the reruns of "The Golden Girls", which had cemented my impression of all of Florida as a gigantic retirement home. I expected to find octogenarians teetering serenely back and forth in their Kennedy rocking chairs on the porches of the hotels along the ocean that were now as far past their prime as were their aged inhabitants.
How wrong I was !
I was in South Beach for a bit over 50 hours. I estimate that I managed about 4 hours of sleep. It was not only a great photographic experience, I had a very good time with what little free time I afforded myself. Whether that be having my morning coffee at the News Cafe with all the chic European models (in town for a catalog shoot), a sunset walk along the beach, or drinks at the Clevelander Bar and dancing at any one of the many places along the Boulevard. At the end of the trip I was asking the writer why she had allowed us such a short time here in South Beach.
The once moribund oceanfront hotels have been beautifully reclaimed. The scale and color of the art deco architecture was a photographers dream. The light was clear and bright yet soft during the day and at night South Beach seemed to have even more color and certainly more vitality.
The Marlin (pictured above) has become a trendy meeting spot for those seeking a bit of the limelight here in South Beach. It is a visual treasure with its arching lines framed by neon.
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Subject : The Marlin - South Beach Miami - Florida - USA
Original Post Date: : Oct 29, 2006 3:36 PM
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