{"id":1905,"date":"2014-06-26T13:11:42","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T13:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/creativeknockout.com\/hostedsites\/portfolio\/?p=1905"},"modified":"2014-06-26T13:11:42","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T13:11:42","slug":"lakewood-ranch-artistadventurer-wins-iphone-photography-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/2014\/06\/26\/lakewood-ranch-artistadventurer-wins-iphone-photography-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakewood Ranch artist\/adventurer wins iPhone Photography Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"
By\u00a0Thomas Becnel<\/a>\u00a0, Herald-Tribune\u00a0<\/small><\/span>\/\u00a0Wednesday, June 25, 2014<\/div>\n

Where to start with Julio Lucas?\u00a0<\/span>He\u2019s a 32-year-old illustrator, web designer, photographer, athlete and Ringling School of Art and Design graduate who won first place in the 2014 iPhone Photography Awards.\u00a0<\/span>He\u2019s an adventurer who loves climbing, flying and the outdoors. Julio once worked as a whitewater rafting guide as a teenager and had a near death experience when he ran out of air\u00a0while on a\u00a0scuba-diving trip two years ago.\u00a0<\/span>
\u201cThere was a moment … within that moment, where you become\u00a0really calm and focused,\u201d Lucas says. \u201cIt\u2019s a really strange feeling.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>The best part is these stories are only the beginning.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t consider myself a photographer, though,\u201d Lucas says. \u201cMy wife\u2019s a better iPhone photographer than I am, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a native of Puerto Rico who moved to Florida when he was 3, then was adopted by a family from Kentucky.
\n\u201cI spent the first half of my life as a\u00a0boriqua<\/em>\u00a0and the second half as a hillbilly,\u201d Lucas jokes. \u201cI learned to hunt, fish and run trout lines, to camp and live off the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"julio_medres\"3 a.m. obsessions<\/strong>
\nLucas works as Director of New Media at Tidewell Hospice in Lakewood Ranch. Around the office, he wears dark pants, striped shirts and a bulky running watch.
\n\u201cI\u2019m trying to lose some weight, its a constant struggle,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

Lucas seems youthful, but he has the tired eyes of someone who works until 3 a.m. on work projects, art projects and whatever else captures his imagination. He says he stopped watching television last year, so that gives him more time to obsess over things. Just last week, he stayed up all night trying to photograph a honey moon on Siesta Beach. At first, I thought he said \u201choneymoon,\u201d but he meant the yellow-colored moon that appears in the night sky once in awhile.<\/p>\n

Lucas dreams of living in the mountains of Colorado, but enjoys life on the Gulf Coast.\u00a0\u201cI actually love the summer here,\u201d he says. \u201cI like the way Sarasota looks when it\u2019s wet and skies turn deep orange, pink and purple.<\/p>\n

Patagonian glacier<\/strong>
\nFor winning the iPhone photo contest, Lucas will receive a new iPad and an ounce of gold. He laughs. What the heck do you do with an ounce of gold?
\nLucas\u2019 wife Mariam is from Venezuela. They were touring South America and visiting Argentina when he went hiking and climbing in Patagonia.
\nHe set up his regular camera for a time-lapse video. While waiting, he pulled out his iPhone.
\n\u201cI was trying to take panoramas, but it was too windy,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I tried to take a couple of regular photographs. It\u2019s really easy when you\u2019re in this exposed place and everything is so beautiful. I could have taken a Polaroid and it would have been amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0http:\/\/www.ticketsarasota.com\/2014\/06\/25\/lakewood-ranch-artistadventurers-takes-first-place-iphone-photography-contest\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Thomas Becnel\u00a0, Herald-Tribune\u00a0\/\u00a0Wednesday, June 25, 2014 Where to start with Julio Lucas?\u00a0He\u2019s a 32-year-old illustrator, web designer, photographer, athlete and Ringling School of Art and Design graduate who won first…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1905","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-in-the-news","8":"category-julio-lucas"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juliolucas.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}