Day 59 (Weds., Nov. 9)

My first assignment read something like "if the flea market is open, then forget about the assignment". The story was about the group of people who were making things happen at a local flea market. They were working out of their cars. A man, the assignment form said, was cutting hair w/ power from his car.

It seemed like a cool assignment. However, when I got to the location things were different. There wasn't anyone working like the assignment said. It's Wednesday, so the hair cut person wouldn't have much work to begin w/. There was, however, a large group of people. Turns out they were all merchants who were told they might be let into the building for the first time since Wilma hit more than two weeks ago. Apparently, the roof was damaged and the building owner did not want to take risks.

After talking to a few merchants, there was an over all feeling that they were mad because they had not worked in two weeks. One mentioned that the building owner has refused to make the improvements to the road outside the building and to the roof. He said that all merchants were mad and were waiting on the arrival of the owner because they were going to let him have it. It looked like everyone was pretty mad and an outrage was going to happen.

However, the owner showed up. Parked his SUV and walked through the crowd. Everyone opened way for him and not a single word was said.

"Where's the outrage?" I kept on asking me as the owner walked closer to the entrance. So, there he went. About three minutes later, the man who told me he was "p____ed off" came up to the door and started yelling into it. Only, the owner was nowhere to be seen. I was so confused. The merchants were talking a lot of smack and when it came down to showtime, they couldn't say a word. Man!

Not that I wanted an outrage -- well, OK, I did wanted an outrage so there would be photos to shoot, but I am just thinking visually w/ that mentality -- but I thought someone should have said all the things they told me. I couldn't believe how they could not stand up and say what they had to say.

A few minutes later, men came up to me and said "how come you're not taking any photos?" The man, who said he was going to let the owner have it came up to me and said "why aren't you taking photos?"... Uhh, that got me mad.

I told the person that I wasn't taking any photos because there wasn't anything to take a photo of. A group of people outside a building is not really telling the story. I explained to him that if there was anything newsworthy, I would be shooting it. Otherwise, I was just going to continue to wait and see if there was a story there.

Last week I praised the work of the Immokalee workers. They were able to speak out against their suppressors. If this owner was so bad, someone should have said something.

After going to the office, I went back out on the field. Again, I was taken to the local mall. Grrr. Last week I talked about how boring it is to shoot photos at the mall. I had a different mentality today, though. I was going to have fun. I think I did. I walked around for about two hours and made some OK photos. But at least I didn't want to hang myself after I was done.

Perhaps it was easier this time because there were more people at the mall. I am not sure why I had a better time at the mall today. I think it was because I knew I had a cool assignment following right behind.

So after the mall, I drove down to Miami Beach and went to a cool restaurant. There, I shot photos of the chefs and their cool turkey dishes. It was fun. Man, Miami Beach is just like I imagined it. It's full of restaurants, bars and cool places to hang out. It looks expensive and it seems as if you have to be of a special kind to be there.

Even the food in Miami Beach has style. I don't know what it is about Miami, but it does hold up to what the girl on the radio commercial says when she mentions that Miami is the Sexiest City.

It definitely has style and cool people. Well, that's what I think. There aren't too many places where you can see a woman wearing a pair of pants. These pants were composed of about 20% of what the original pants company made. The slits, cuts and holes throughout the pants made me question how it maintained its shape. And also how do you take care of such pants when you do your laundry?

That's Miami Beach for ya.

Yesterday - Main - Tomorrow