A Different Kind of Exposure

Three weeks.

That's how long I'd owned a camera before I found myself standing in a photographer pit at Miami Swim Week.

No portfolio. No years of experience. No long list of shoots that prepared me for it.

Just a Sony, three weeks of learning everything I could get my hands on, and an opportunity I wasn't about to turn down.

The funny thing is, I wasn't nervous.

Maybe I should've been.

But standing there with models coming down the runway, photographers firing beside me and an entire production moving around us, I didn't feel out of place.

I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

The first thing Miami taught me had nothing to do with photography.

It taught me how much happens outside the frame.

I remember arriving at the Sagamore and seeing models entering the hotel while staff unloaded bags and production equipment.

Then I walked inside.

Models everywhere.

Some waiting to be chosen by designers. Others headed to hair and makeup. Rehearsals happening. Production moving. Photographers arriving. Everyone preparing for something the audience hadn't seen yet.

Until then, I don't think I understood how much work went into creating a fashion show.

Models and production staff rehearse on an empty runway before The Deity Show.

A hairstylist curls a model's hair backstage before the runway show.

A makeup artist applies eye makeup backstage before The Deity Show.

The audience eventually sees the lights, music, clothes and finished runway.

But before any of that, somebody has to create the moment.

Then it was my turn to capture it.

And I learned quickly.

Some shots were sharp.

Some weren't.

Some were beautiful.

Some were dark enough to make me wonder whether I'd accidentally photographed Miami Swim Week during a power outage.

Then I switched to video and discovered dark lines running through footage I thought I'd nailed because of the LED lighting.

Welcome to photography.

But I didn't leave those mistakes behind and pretend they didn't happen.

I learned why they happened.

Then I adjusted.

Different angle. Different setting. Different approach.

A mistake is only wasted if you don't learn anything from it.

Pageant titleholder smiling between runway moments at The Deity Show.

Model pauses on the runway in a silver beaded and feathered look.

By the next opportunity, I knew something I didn't know before.

That's still how I approach photography today.

The more I shot, the more I started looking away from the obvious.

The runway was incredible, but there was so much happening around it.

So I turned around.

I photographed the crowd.

The photographers.

People laughing.

Sponsors and guests.

Hair being curled. Makeup being finished. The hotel itself.

The quiet moments before the loud ones.

A guest waves a fan beside the runway while the audience waits for the next look.

Guests react and smile from the front row during The Deity Show.

Because twenty perfect runway photos can show you what someone wore. But one real expression can show you what it felt like to be there.

That became more interesting to me.

Somewhere in all of that, I captured the perfect photograph.

She was walking the runway when she looked directly into my lens.

Not past me.

Not toward the photographers as a group.

At me.

She turned her body slightly, gave a wink and pointed toward the sky.

I pressed the shutter.

Runway model looks directly into Tony Sims' lens, winks and points toward the sky.

It probably lasted less than a second.

But that's the thing I'm starting to love about photography.

A moment doesn't have to last very long to mean something.

Everything lined up just long enough for me to catch it.

And when I looked at the photograph, I knew I had something.

Not because it was technically perfect.

Because it felt alive.

And because apparently my first photography assignment wasn't ridiculous enough already, Jason Derulo was now performing in front of my camera.

Three weeks.

Remember that part.

The energy changed instantly.

Dancers moved through the lights. Models became part of the performance. Phones went into the air. The audience stopped simply watching and became part of what was happening.

Jason Derulo performs with dancers as the runway audience and photographers surround the stage.

At one point, Jason was performing directly toward a model while she interacted back with him. Behind them, people were smiling, recording, reacting.

Another photographer was in my frame.

I kept shooting.

I didn't want to make the moment cleaner than it really was.

The crowd belonged there.

The photographer belonged there.

The movement belonged there.

I wasn't trying to make the night look perfect.

I wanted it to feel as big as it felt standing inside it.

Jason Derulo performs toward a runway model as the crowd reacts and a photographer works in the foreground.

By the third day, I understood something else.

Fashion can look exclusive from the outside.

What I experienced was almost the opposite.

I met photographers and told them straight up that I'd just started. They didn't look down on me. They gave me advice. We exchanged contact information. We talked photography.

Models supported designers. Guests supported performers. Production supported everybody.

People cared.

That's what surprised me.

This wasn't just a bunch of people showing up to look at clothes.

It was a community of people creating something together.

Elegant. Inclusive. Unique.

Those are still the three words I'd use to describe it.

Model turns at the end of the runway during the Bon Kini presentation.

Model poses in a gold crochet runway look at Miami Swim Week.

And somewhere inside all of that, I got to watch my wife in her element.

I'd seen the days and nights she spent in school. The traveling. Teaching. Learning. Shadowing people in the industry. The work that happens when nobody is watching.

Now I was watching her help run the production as Director of Operations.

It made all of those days and nights make sense.

And for the first time, I could see how our creative paths might exist beside each other.

She had found something that belonged to her.

I was beginning to find something that belonged to me.

Vanessa Sims watches production from backstage while wearing a headset at The Deity Show.

There was one thing Miami never gave me.

A moment where I suddenly realized, Maybe I can actually do this.

That moment never happened.

Because I never walked in believing I couldn't.

That's just not how I operate.

I knew I could learn.

I knew I'd make mistakes.

And I knew I'd get better.

Miami didn't give me permission to call myself a photographer. It gave me somewhere to begin.

Model representing Texas poses in a gold runway look at The Deity Show.

Model walks in a blue Bon Kini look with a flowing metallic cover-up.

When the final show ended, I looked around at everything we'd helped create.

The runway that had been empty before the crowds arrived.

The models we'd watched preparing.

The lights.

The performances.

The photographers I'd been standing beside.

The people we'd met.

And now it was over.

We did it.

And I had helped do it.

I was proud.

Not because every photograph was perfect.

They weren't.

I can look at those images today and find a hundred things I'd do differently.

Good.

That means I'm growing.

The runway sits quiet after the energy of The Deity Show has passed.

What mattered was that three weeks after buying my first camera, I'd walked into an environment I'd never experienced before and found something that felt strangely familiar.

I went to Miami to photograph The Deity Show.

I came home with the beginning of NorthVeil Visuals.

That's a different kind of exposure.

And I've been chasing the light ever since.

Where Moments Become Visual Stories.