Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

It was tough work but somebody had to do it. Year after year for perhaps 20 years I photographed the Miss North Miami Pageant. In the beginning it was sponsored by the city, but later it was taken over by the North Miami Chamber of Commerce. The city had a bigger budget and the public relations director had me spend a bit of time photographing each girl, twelve in all, often at one of the local parks. Then there were the posed shots, head and shoulders portraits with studio lighting at the armory where the pageant was held, and shots of the girls rehearsing the pageant itself. Plus the actual Pageant and the coronation ball. It was quite a bit of photography in all.

I can't remember this girl's name offhand, or the exact year either, for that matter. I suppose next time I'm at the Chamber office I'll take a look. It was back around 1980 when AC/DC had their big hit Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. I actually did shoot those pageants dirt cheap, but that was mostly because it was fun and I more than made up for it with selling prints to the girls. Many of them aspired to be models, actresses, dancers, and such. One Miss North Miami, Sandra Santiago, went on to star in the Miami Vice television show as the female lead detective.

This was about the time that I decided that I wanted to start getting into some of these celebrity shots by handing off the camera to whomever was handy. We took two pictures. In one we're both looking at the camera, but I like this one better. It really exemplifies the sort of dirty deeds expected of us poor photographers.