biography

Born Saturday, May 6th of the year 2000 in Bayamón, Puerto Rico; Jafet Eliel Serrano Guzmán is a photographer & videographer who was raised in the small town of Barrio Nuevo, Naranjito. Surrounded by a humble and loving family, Jafet had a pretty ordinary and simple life on the countryside. Which made him see the beauty in simplicity. Unfortunately, at twelve years of age, Jafet’s life took a heavy twist. He lost his father due to smoke inhalation from a fire that broke out at his father‘s house. Jafet's parents were separated at this point and he was supposed to visit his father that same weekend the tragedy occurred. This unfortunate event was Jafet's first encounter with death, which will present itself many times throughout his life. This led him to accept perhaps a little better that death is just a natural part of life.

Not long after the incident Jafet had to switch schools, going from a public school in Naranjito to a private paid school in Manatí called "Colegio Marista de Manatí El Salvador" where he would continue studying and eventually graduate from high school. He also moved to the town of Vega Baja around this same time, where he still resides to this day. The sharp contrast between these two settings made Jafet's life seem like it had just been divided in two. However, thanks to this change, Jafet learned so many new things, met some of the most inspiring teachers and friends, discovered his passion for creating and he also learnt to love his little archipelago of Puerto Rico. Especially after living through hurricane María in 2017.

After he graduated from high school in 2018, initially Jafet pursued college to study a bachelor's degree on chemical engineering and soon after, he decided to switch to social sciences. However, it wasn't until after the COVID pandemic hit, that he truly realized that maybe he wasn't happy with the things he was studying or pursuing in life. For a brief moment, Jafet felt stuck and confused. This feeling lasted a while, but fortunately, he saw a way out and started to pursue one of his passions; Creating!

Slowly but surely Jafet has dedicated time to educate himself, mostly through trial and error and mentorship from great people on how to properly create inside the world of photography and videography. He started out by just opening a YouTube channel to create informative videos and vlogs with an iPhone 10S in 2021. Now, he owns a Sony A7IV mirrorless camera and he has been living in NYC studying and discovering more about photography and videography.

My gear

Cameras

I currently own a Sony Alpha 7IV mirrorless digital camera.

The camera has a 33 MP full frame sensor for some crispy looking pictures. On the video side, the camera's sensor quality is 7k downsampled to 4k, which means footage is less grainy and more crisp than usual 4k standards. Especially in low-light situations with a double base ISO kicking in at 3200 and an excellent dynamic range with S-LOG 3. I also have a GoPro Hero 9 and a DJI Mini 2 drone for some extra creativity!

Camera body

Lenses & Filters

For the moment I create all of my work with only two lenses. My favorite one to use is the 50mm F 1.8 Sony lens. It is one of the best full frame budget options out there. The other one is a Sigma 16mm F 1.4 lens. Another great lens for the price!

I also own ND filters and a Prism Lens FX "Nostalgia" Filter, which is one of the best looking diffusion filters out there in my opinion.

"nostalgia" fx filter

Lighting & Equipment

In terms of lights, I own a Godox ML-60 LED daylight balanced light with softbox and diffusion. I also own an Aputure MC RGBWW LED light. I also have Manfrotto tripods, Impact background/light stands and a separate microphone for better audio. Even though I can already create unique work with this, I absolutely plan to keep purchasing more equipment in the future.

ML-60 Light

Editing Softwares

I use the Adobe Creative Cloud editing programs to create most of my content. From Lightroom and Photoshop, to Premier Pro and After Effects. However, I tend to use Final Cut Pro a little bit more on the video side. My goal is to keep learning on how to efficiently use every editing software I can, that also helps me achieve the vision I have for my creations.

Adobe bundle