Here is a short bio of my career. I’ve been a photographer for the past 20 plus years. After graduating from hotel management and having worked both in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (Sands Hotel & Casino), I always felt a connection to both hotels and photography. I’m guessing there were about 8,000 hotel rooms in the Dominican Republic at that time. Now there are about 80,000 and the year 2019 will probably close with 90,000 rooms (in all of the island). So just by these numbers, hotels in the Dominican Republic will be needing quality imagery.
I started to work as a beach photographer after I came back from the Sands Hotel. I was one of those that took your photo while on some excursion from the hotel. This was in the 90’s so film was still used mostly in photography. As a beach photographer my job was to photograph turists in the hotel during their stay doing different activities. It actually paid pretty well for I was one of the first to do this kind of job in the Caribbean. After a couple of years I was moved to Freeport (Bahamas) by my then boss and opened up a photo store to do the same photos I was doing in the Dominican Republic. But this time I had to shoot, develop the film and sell the photos. That hotel was Club Fortuna, now called Viva Wyndham Fortuna Beach. After that year I went back to the DR and started a freelance career that has lasted well over 20 years.
Because of the know how I learned of the hospitality industry during my studies, it was clear that I had to focus more on hotel photography and combine both photography and hotels. Hotels need quality imagery to sell their properties. From bed making to table setting, I know all of the industrie’s standards. Although many hotel chains have their own unique guidelines, it is of upmost importance to follow the brand book’s photography guidelines. Hilton, Marriott, Barceló, Meliá, Iberotar, etc., all have different photo guidelines.
A shot I did for the book Turismo dominicano: 30 años a la velocidad de crucero.
So after many years of photographing hotels, I was approached by one of the mos important banks here in the Dominican Republic, Banco Popular Dominicano. They wanted me to photograph hotels for their new book about Domnican Tourism. I was hired and shot for about 4 months. I delivered some 2,000 images. Out of those, some 400 were used for the book. I shot about 100 hotels for this book. For each hotel I decided to photograph at least one bedroom, one restaurant, one pool and a beach. Imagen doing this for 100 times! Here is the link when the book was put into circulation:https://www.popularenlinea.com/Personas/sala-de-prensa/Pages/El-Popular-presenta-el-libro-%E2%80%9CTurismo-dominicano--30-a%C3%B1os-a-velocidad-de-crucero%E2%80%9D.aspx . My name is there somewhere I hope. City hotels as well as resort coastal properties where photographed for this beautiful book.
Thiago da Cunha
