Still Life
Time stops in Baldomero Fernandez’s moody, memory-infused photographs, but his Cuban roots and passionate soul shine through
You could say that Baldomero Fernandez’s career was born in a love motel, one of the rent-by-the-hour establishments that punctuate Calle Ocho, the main street of Miami’s Little Havana.
Sitting outside the funeral home during his grandmother’s wake, the now celebrated fashion and commercial photographer noticed garish pastel colors stretching across the muted dark asphalt, cast from nearby motel lights. Camera in hand, he returned the next day to shoot the love motels, eventually debuting the work at a local gallery—only to receive national praise. “Magazines started hiring me because of that,” he remembers. “It was the first time I got recognition for something I did on my own, something personal.”
Today, the Miami-born Fernandez shoots to tell a story. No matter the object—a pair of jeans or a famous actor—he photographs with a narrative in mind, each shot part of a larger, intentional vision. He’s not one to direct, instead shooting his subjects as if he’s interrupted them in a perfectly ordinary moment. “What I love about his work is that it’s honest. There are no tricks,” says Jennifer Laski, photo and video editor of The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard, who has worked alongside Fernandez for years. “He’s a true portraitist, whether it’s a model or an actor or even a landscape or a house. He catches the authentic moment and doesn’t force anything.”
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by
Mirta Ojito
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