Tyler Fortune’s interest in photography began when he was a young child. His grandmother gave him a 35mm camera. “It was green and see through,” he said. Tyler began skateboarding and wanted to catch his friends in midair using his camera. He would set himself up and have his friends do the tricks. Later on, he would have his mom take him to Walmart to have the film developed. Do you remember those days? You would take a picture and hope it came out the way you remembered. Those were the days we saved pictures for special events. Today, I barely have enough space on my phone from all the pictures I take. But I digress.

Tyler said he loved the feeling of getting his developed photos back, “I was always super stoked to see that I got the trick in midair!” His love for photography grew from there. In middle school and high school, he started taking photography classes and after dabbling in film was introduced to commercial photography and product photography.

Tyler’s father was in the Air Force, and he moved around a lot. He moved from Florida to southern California, then back to Florida, but the majority of Tyler’s adolescence was spent in Montana. He and his wife are high school sweethearts, and although they met in Montana, she was born in Florida. Both knew they wanted to return to Florida. While earning his photography degree, he began learning about software design. Prior to graduating, he had secured a position in Orlando. Shortly afterwards, his wife gained a position as well; all the pieces were falling into place.

The Fortunes decided to live in the Lake Nona area. Tyler says, “Being from Montana, we enjoy the quieter areas because we aren’t used to the hustle and bustle of Orlando traffic. This is our favorite area because we are still close to Orlando, but we still get the quieter area.”  

Tyler enjoys outdoor adventure photography and architecture photography. His favorite shot is called “The Girl in Red.” While working on a project for his senior thesis entitled “City Lights,” he worked on day-to-night composites. He would set the camera up for 4-5 hours and hang out and wait. By taking a photo roughly every 2 minutes, he would end up with about 300 pictures. He described it similar to a time lapse that is composited into one picture. Within the picture, you can see the lighting of the day as well as the evening lights coming through. Within the photograph, a woman in a bright red coat appears. Tyler says he remembers most of the people who walked by, but he couldn’t remember seeing the woman in red and did not know about her until reviewing the images. The woman in red was left as a beautiful focal point in an already beautiful photograph.

You can find more photography by Tyler Fortune on his photography website, www.tylerfortune.photo, or you can follow him on Instagram @tylerfortune8.