Sugar cane cutters from Jamaica prepare to go home after harvest season, Miami International Airport. © Nathan Benn
The image of Florida is a curious mélange of palm trees and sandy beaches, gators and golfers on the green, and something darker lying in wait, ready to take the bait — best known to in the headlines as “Florida Man.” Peel back the cheerful veneer of “the happiest place on earth,” and what you find is something far more unusual.
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Perhaps it is the draw of living in the Sunshine State that has cast Florida as the dream destination for people living across the Americas. “Whether they were snowbirds moving from the north into retirement or whether they were refugees, economic or political, from the Caribbean, Florida has always had this allure as a place of opportunity,” says Florida native Nathan Benn, who is showing photographs from his new book A Peculiar Paradise (powerHouse) at HistoryMiami Museum this winter.
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“This is not like any other celebration of the state: other Florida picture books have sunsets, palm trees and beaches, and pink stucco,” Benn adds. Here, we have everything from Dundee’s 5th Street Gym, where Muhammad Ali famously trained, to Benn’s work with Frank White (a.k.a. “Dirty Harry”) at the Drug Enforcement Agency during the early days of the Drug War.
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Drawing from an archive of more than 27,000 photographs taken of his home state while photographing for National Geographic Magazine over a period of 20 years, A Peculiar Paradise is a love letter to a most unusual land.
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Sully Emmett collected the gym’s membership dues. 5th Street Gym, Miami Beach, 1981. © Nathan Benn
Fountainbleau Hotel, Miami Beach. © Nathan Benn