6 minute read
FREEZE FRAME
Antonio Banderas, 1995
TIME TRAVEL THROUGH THE LENS OF PHOTOGRAPHER MANNY HERNANDEZ, WHOSE ICONIC CANDIDS CHRONICLE THE MAGIC CITY’S POP CULTURE NDSCAPE OF THE 1990S
BY MELISSA PUPPO
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Rollerbladers on a packed Ocean Drive, an explosion of luxe fashion statements, a party-hearty culture, and a veritable who’s who at legendary hangouts like The Forge—it’s a memory montage of Miami Beach in the ’90s. And there to capture the city’s hedonistic spirit was Manny Hernandez, known to many as “Manny of Miami.” Born and raised in Wynwood (though he admits it was a KERRY MCLANEY much different vibe back then), Hernandez DJed and dabbled in production and broadcast after graduating from Miami Dade College. He got his footing in photography in the early ’90s, spending much of his career chronicling the Magic City via prints on fi lm, all of which are now fi led away in boxes. Locally, his photos appeared in a weekly column in the Miami Herald and on the pages of Ocean Drive. Friends in New York and around the United States often called on him to shoot events for publications—and others soon followed.
“That’s where the concept comes from,” Hernandez explains of his brand. “People would call me up and say, ‘Hey, are you Manny from Miami?’”
Everywhere there was a party, you could bet Hernandez was in attendance, camera in hand. “I’ve been able to establish my own kind of circuit of things that I do every year,” he says. Getty Images now syndicates his photos, and a wealth of other outlets request shots from the events he shoots in South Florida and around the world.
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“People keep calling,” he says. “I don’t take it for granted. I just go from one thing to the next. I’m still doing stuff every night.”
Some of Hernandez’s most memorable Miami encounters include Hugh Hefner, Buzz Aldrin, and Mikhail Gorbachev. “I don’t get really starstruck until later when I start telling people, ‘Oh yeah, I had this thing with Shaquille O’Neal,’ or ‘I did this thing with that person.’ I’ve met so many interesting people throughout my career.”
His favorite moments appeared in his book, Candids Miami, a collection of images from the city’s ’90s celebrity scene shot on 35mm, negative fi lm. Flip through candid photos of icons and iconic moments like Gianni Versace outside his Miami Beach home, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira early in their careers, and Robin Williams on the set of The Birdcage.
Hernandez’s next book, Candids Miami 2, debuts in February, showcasing more tucked-away moments from a bygone Miami. “The stuff I put in my book are winners: Grammy winners, Oscar winners, Emmy winners, etc., [who] are still in the business,” he says. “These pictures were taken in the ’90s. Anybody who had a name back then and you can still say their name now and it’s relevant, that’s a star to me.”
Though he still enjoys the photog life, Hernandez says he’d like to teach what he knows to the next generation. “I want to go into everything I’ve learned. Not necessarily just the photography part, but how you do it. You can have a successful career in photography, but you don’t have to shoot food to make money. I’d like to have some type of master class where I can share a lot of info to help type of master class where I can share a lot of info to help and inspire.” (wynwoodbooks.com) «and inspire.” (wynwoodbooks.com)
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