Today we’d like to introduce you to Humberto Vidal.
Hi Humberto, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
It sounds cliche, but I have loved Photography and Arts, in general, my whole life. I tried to study photography as a career, but the idea wasn’t too popular with my parents. My second option was Architecture, the closest technical occupation in the arts, but in the end, I studied Business to make everybody happy.
My love for Photography and Art never faded. During my commercial aviation days, the headquarters of the company where I used to work was in front of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo and The National Art Gallery in Caracas, Venezuela. I went at least weekly for more than 10 years, and the entrance was free.
Several years later I tried to go again to go college and study Photography but in this case just as a hobby, but the economic situation in Venezuela and other personal events delayed this dream once again. For the third time lucky and only 12 years ago finally I fulfilled my dream, and I studied Sciences of Photography at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale at age 47, in theory as a hobby, I was working as a Financial Advisor these days.
To finish my degree, I had to take some electives, but all the classes that I was interested in were not open, so I took classes from the Fashion Department at the Institute just to finish my studies, and the rest is history.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has always been a very rocky path, and it still is. In the beginning, was opposition from my family, for them, a Photographer was the guy taking pictures at Weddings and in Plazas, and nowadays for a lot of people a Photographer is a person with a cool camera that press a button.
More than half of the Photography program is about the legal and business side: copyrights, liabilities, privacy, marketing, etc., quite different from other arts where these aspects are not an issue. You must know about Fashion, Architecture, Food, Sports, you name it. In a simple wedding, you must shoot the venue, the food, the decoration, the ring, the bride, and the people. Not precisely to press only a button.
Then you need not one, but several cameras in case one fails, and they fail, powerful computers, fast internet, commercial grade accessories, etc., and you must pay for all of this, but once again, a photographer is a person who only must push a button. Changing this mindset is exceedingly difficult.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I do a little bit of everything, I studied for it, and I have to pay my bills, but maybe I am better known for my work with Fashion, Fitness, and Fine Art, all of them very connected. When I studied photography, I did it as a hobby, just to take better pictures during my travels, I never saw myself shooting fashion or celebrities. I am very shy and for me, that was very far.
But when I was having Fashion History and Fashion Styling Classes my classmates started to ask me for help with their collections, designs, catalogs, etc., and that’s how I was introduced to the fashion photography world. On another side, I have been a professional athlete myself, and fitness athletes started contacting me from the beginning for fitness pictures.
Finally, I have been an art lover all my life, I started to apply all this knowledge to my work and that is how I ended up doing also fine art photography. You have to go to a lot of art galleries, museums, and art fairs, read books, watch movies, and architecture, and “train your eye” to be different, to get inspiration, and ideas, and this takes a lot of time. This is what I do when I am not shooting or editing. my place is full of books about art and photography.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some changes you expect to see over the next five to ten years?
The “field” that has been most impacted by technology and social media during the last 10 years is precisely photography. Nowadays everybody has a powerful camera in their pockets and bags, which has been a game changer.
For many a terrible thing, and others like me, an amazing opportunity. Now people appreciate a good photograph more, a lot need more content, imagination, or the way photographs are now known. But even with the billions of cameras now in circulation and the billions of photographs taken every day, creativity is still needed, and this hasn’t changed.
Pricing:
- $150-$250-hour fashion, fitness, and personal shoots.
- $250 and up weddings
Contact Info:
- Website: https://humbertovidalphoto.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/humbertovidalphoto/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/humbertovidalphoto
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/humbertovidalph
Image Credits
Brittany Plasencia, Tanya Etessam, Shireen Sandoval, Tammy Apostol, Gabrille Opro, Deeana May, and Designer Mayda
