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| Tomas Muñoz |
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Tomas Muñoz’s photographic roots run deep – four generations deep, actually.
In the ’60s, Muñoz’s grandfather fled Cuba to open a studio in Miami. A few years later, his brothers decided to do the same, and went to Miami to open studios of their own. Muñoz’s father, Mario, opened his first studio when he was just 16 years old. Currently, there are six photography studios in the Muñoz family.
“Fathers taught sons and grandfathers taught their grandsons,” Muñoz proudly shares. “That’s the foundation for Muñoz Photography. We combine the generational knowledge of portraiture with an innovative, contemporary style,” he explains. “We grew up learning old-school photography using traditional film cameras. “We didn’t use cameras with auto focus or auto flash. In fact, that’s how we still shoot today. We don’t really use many of the automatic functions in today’s cameras because of how we were taught.”
Muñoz still sees himself and his family as traditional photographers. But what sets them apart is how they apply their traditional training to a contemporary style.
“Recently, a bride came in with her mother because we had done the mother’s wedding,” Muñoz recounts. “The bride had told her mom she didn’t want a photographer who’d been around for generations to do her wedding. She wanted something cool, something sexy, something fun. The bride sat down reluctantly, but after 15 minutes, she said, ‘Stop. You don’t have to show me anything else. You’re the complete opposite of what I expected. It’s very contemporary, but the lighting’s different than other photographers. It makes everything look alive.’”
It’s that delicate balance of old and new that sets Muñoz Photography apart.
“You need to know the rules before you can break them,” Muñoz says. “If my grandfather were still alive, and he saw the work we’re doing now, he would be very impressed, because it would still be what he felt is a good photograph.”
Seeing the Business from a Different Angle
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Growing up in the business, it’s not surprising that Muñoz picked up his first camera at a very early age.
“I started going to weddings with my father, like my brothers, when I was 7 years old,” he says. “By the time I was 12, I photographed my first wedding by myself. The funny thing is, my father actually encouraged us not to be photographers,” Muñoz explains. “Growing up, my father didn’t have a choice. It was forced on him. When my grandfather came to this country, all he had to pass down was photography. It was pushed very hard from the uncles to the sons.
“My father raised us in the business, but when I turned 17 and went off to study at the University of Florida, he insisted that I try and find my calling. Out of all my brothers, I was the most involved with photography,” he admits. “I was photographing weddings every weekend since I was little. But it was just a business. It wasn’t until I went to college that I really became passionate about it.”
After Muñoz left home, his eyes were opened to competitions and to what other photographers were doing. “At 16 I thought I had learned everything I needed to know. But in school I met other photographers, became involved with the Professional Photographers of America (PPA), started competing, and did very good,” he says. “I went to England and studied with Peter Dyer, Hanson Fong, Tim Kelly, Bruce Evensen, and the Simones. So, my education in photography wasn’t in school, it came through working with professionals,” Muñoz explains. “By the time I was 21, I was the youngest photographer to ever receive a master’s in photography through the PPA.”
The Art Behind the Business
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Most artists measure their work by the criteria needed to create that perfect shot. For Muñoz, his work is measured by its impact. “I ask myself how much impact the photo has, regardless of rules or how much one knows about photography. Impact, expression, lighting, composition, and pose, especially when photographing people,” he explains.
”It’s knowing when someone’s body is in the right position, that’s most flattering to them. Women want to look slender and curvaceous. Men want to look masculine. So body position, and what the body language between the couple is saying is very important,” Muñoz adds. “We’re very aware of what’s happening in front of us, and know when to take the best shot.”
Muñoz is asked to describe his style quite often. As a professional photographer, he tends to modify how he photographs based on his client’s expectations. “If someone comes to me and says they just want traditional family portraits, I can do that. Or I can do the complete opposite for a couple looking for something more fun and contemporary,” he says.
“I kind of look at it like a plastic surgeon would. What do you want to be, what do you want to change, how can I do a great job for you? That’s the mentality you need. We make it very clear to brides and grooms that we can do anything,” Muñoz explains. “We’re here for them, and they know it.”
With an average of 200 weddings and events a year, it’s safe to say that attitude pays off big time. “Our biggest form of advertising is word of mouth,” Munoz says. “This month we’re shooting 40 weddings with just four main shooters, so we’re working pretty hard.”And they’re not just working hard in Miami. “We travel a lot,” he says. “My father and I recently shot an event at the Ocean Club Estates in the Bahamas. Next month I’m flying to Indiana for a wedding at the Basilica at Notre Dame. And the month after that I’m going to Athens, Greece,” he adds. “We also have weddings scheduled this year in Tennessee, California, and New York City.”
Album Design With a Story in Mind
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When Muñoz Photography puts an album together, they want it to be timeless. “I’m a fan of clean, simple album design,” Muñoz admits. “I like to see larger images in an album rather than a bunch of smaller ones. If your photography is strong, you don’t need a lot of images. So, a majority of our books have only one or two images per page.”
Muñoz wants an album to tell a story and strives to make every spread consistent. “We have a spread of the bride getting ready, and one of the groom,” he says. “Then a spread of the bride and groom seeing each other for the first time, and then their portraits. Every single spread tells a different story. That’s why we photograph so many different locations,” Muñoz explains. ”We want to get as many different looks as possible, because the more great images we take at an event, the more the bride and groom are going to want to put in their album.”
Up and Running in a New Direction
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The Muñoz family has always had an affinity for new technologies and faster processes. “My father’s always been very cutting edge,” explains Muñoz. “Our studio went digital 11 years ago. For his generation, my father’s always been the most advanced, which was exactly how my grandfather was.”
That need to constantly move forward in technology and business continues.
“We’re always looking for ways to diversify the scope of business we operate in,” Muñoz explains. “So we’re not only embracing more events, we’re embracing more lines of work.”
To that end, Muñoz Photography recently decided to invest in their own lab. “It’s something we’d been considering for several years,” he says. “One of the most important things for us is having control of the quality of work that we do — we’ve always done all of our own color management. And we recently tripled our square footage at our main office, so we finally had the room. When we ran the numbers, it made sense for us to produce our own work.”
The printer the Muñozes chose was the NORITSU 3701HD. “It has an advanced laser that prints at 640dpi, which is great since quality is so important to us,” Muñoz says. “That’s also why we use KODAK Chemicals and KODAK Paper. The majority of our work is printed on KODAK PROFESSIONAL ENDURA Paper since it’s the highest quality paper available.” He adds that they also use ENDURA Metallic Paper. “We use it for album pages, flyers, and handouts. It’s very cool because it has such a unique property to it — you hand someone something printed on the ENDURA Metallic Paper and they turn it in the light and say, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve never seen anything like this.’ Since we have our own printer and our costs are lower, we can afford to run 100 flyers with a beautiful wedding photograph we shot the weekend prior, and drop it off at the location.”
Though Muñoz is the primary decision maker in the family now, his father still enjoys photography and the whole process. “He’s even more excited now that we’ve become our own lab,” Muñoz says. “He’s actually in charge of running our printer. He used to own his own color lab, so his experience had us up and running pretty quickly. The sheer volume we spit out of the machine in the first week was phenomenal,” Muñoz adds. “But what really impressed us was that very first print. It was absolutely perfect. And everything we’ve printed since has looked fantastic.”
Muñoz relies on his inkjet printers too. “We have them loaded with KODAK PROFESSIONAL Inkjet Photo Paper, Lustre Finish. It has a similar surface to the ENDURA Paper, so it keeps prints as close to our NORITSU Printer as possible. All of the paper we print on has surpassed our expectations on quality,” Muñoz adds. “The quality of our work has done nothing but improve since we have had control of the entire process. So the richness in color, saturation, and highlight detail have all been very impressive with the KODAK Papers we use.”
Branching Out to the World
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As for what’s next, Muñoz says, “We want to do more events, but we also want to grow the school-end of our business, and do more commercial work,” he explains. “In the future, we’re hoping our in-house printing solution will become a small business of its own by printing for other photographers and our clients. Our goal as a company, and as a family, is to not put all of our eggs in one basket, especially in this economy,” Muñoz continues. “By owning all our equipment, we have the ability to earn revenue from a lot of different sources. We are extremely fortunate that our business has never been busier. When someone comes into our studio and sees that we own the building, they see the investment, and see our family all working together, regardless of the economy, they know we’re not going anywhere. People feel secure when they contact us to do an event that’s a year away because they know we’re here to stay.”
Here to stay, yet constantly moving forward. Not a bad position to be in.
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