Artist Thursdays: Yamil Flores

This week's (late) Artist Thursday feature is all about the all talented Yamil Flores.

Yamil wasn't always a photographer but about 5 years ago he bought his first camera and started doing street photography in New York City. Since then, he has been able to develop his own style and has taken on doing portrait photography in a new and exciting (natural) light. Flores is able to capture the true beauty and essence of those in front of his lens.

Back towards the end of this past November, one of the girls at my office approached me about possibly doing a photoshoot with Yamil as he is a good friend of hers and they had taken photos together in the past.  I never really had anyone take my photo before other than a friend taking an outfit photo for this blog or that time I awkwardly posed for my senior yearbook photos in high school.  I was very nervous before meeting and working with Flores but I felt instant relief upon meeting him for the first time and working with him one on one. He is without a doubt a professional and a gentleman and made me feel very comfortable the entire time! I myself was a little stiff at the beginning but it was easy to warm up and come out of my shell which you can see in the collection of photos below.

I was definitely in awe once seeing the outcome of our time together.  I haven't had someone capture me in the way that Yamil did and it was really a beautiful thing to see.  I've done my own share of portrait work from behind the camera instead of in front of it so it was interesting to be on the other side for once.

We (Yamil & I) were both really bummed when we saw that the last photo above turned out like that!  Turns out that his camera started to malfunction and corrupted the files to look like that at random. While it was disappointing, it was actually sort of a cool unintentional effect!  Yamil wasn't too sure what was causing the files to do this strange thing but he continued to photograph hoping that it wouldn't keep happening, but it did.  Here's one another girl's photos' that this happened to below:

I mean it's definitely cool, don't get me wrong but he cannot go on living his life on the edge of a broken camera forever!  Luckily, he has worked with a lot of amazing people and has a lot of great friends who have donated to his GoFundMe that was started shortly after he saw what was happening to his files.

Recently, I think he got his "baby" fixed and is looking to work with new models so definitely hit him up if you are looking to expand your portfolio or want to work with a laid back artist who has an eye for capturing the quiet moments of the human spirit.

You can see more of Yamil's work on his instagram page which is here