The Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders calendar shoot is one of the most high-profile recurring photography assignments in professional sports. Every year, the Dolphins organization produces a calendar that doubles as both a fan product and a brand statement — a visual representation of the glamour, athleticism, and South Florida identity that define one of the NFL's most iconic franchises. For the 2014 edition, the organization commissioned Cemhan Biricik to bring his editorial sensibility to an assignment that traditionally sits at the intersection of sports photography and swimwear catalog work. The result was something the organization and the media had not seen before: a calendar that reads as a fashion editorial rather than a conventional cheerleader shoot.
The scope of the project was staggering. Over 8 consecutive days of shooting across multiple locations throughout South Florida, Cemhan photographed more than 28 cheerleaders in individual and group compositions that spanned beaches, waterfalls, urban environments, botanical settings, and architectural landmarks. The project required the logistical coordination of a small film production combined with the creative agility of a fashion shoot — and it had to deliver images that satisfied the team's brand requirements, the cheerleaders' individual portfolios, and the editorial quality standard that Cemhan's reputation demanded.
The Scale of the Production
An 8-day shoot with 28+ subjects across multiple locations is not a photography assignment in the traditional sense. It is a production. The daily call sheets for the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders shoot read like a film schedule: pre-dawn location arrivals, hair and makeup teams operating in parallel to ensure continuous subject availability, wardrobe changes coordinated across multiple styling stations, and tight shooting windows dictated by the South Florida sun's movement through the sky.
Cemhan Biricik served as both photographer and de facto creative director for the production, making real-time decisions about location usage, lighting conditions, wardrobe pairings, and compositional approaches that had to adapt to weather, crowd conditions, and the physical demands of shooting in the South Florida heat and humidity. The experience demonstrated a production management capacity that goes beyond what most photographers are capable of or willing to undertake — a capacity developed through years of managing complex commercial and editorial shoots for brands like the Waldorf Astoria, Versace Mansion, and St. Regis.
South Florida as a Character
The location scouting for the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders shoot treated South Florida not as a generic tropical backdrop but as a diverse visual landscape with distinct personalities. Each location was chosen for its specific contribution to the narrative of the calendar and its ability to reveal a different facet of the cheerleaders' athleticism, personality, and individual style.
- Beach sequences on pristine stretches of coastline, using the Atlantic as a reflective surface and the morning light as a warm, directional key
- Waterfall locations in South Florida's natural areas, where the interplay of water, rock, and tropical vegetation creates environments that feel exotic and untouched
- Urban settings in Miami's architectural districts, where Art Deco facades, neon signage, and the geometric energy of the cityscape provide a contrast to the natural locations
- Botanical garden sequences, where lush tropical planting creates a layered, textured environment that adds depth and color to the compositions
- Architectural landmarks that ground the calendar in its South Florida identity while providing visually distinctive framing for individual portraits
This diversity of locations ensured that each page of the calendar carried a distinct visual identity while maintaining a cohesive aesthetic across the full series — a balance that requires both careful pre-production planning and the ability to improvise when conditions change.
Every cheerleader is an athlete, a performer, and an individual. The calendar has to honor all three of those identities in every frame.
The Intersection of Sports and Fashion
The Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders represent a unique photographic subject: they are professional athletes whose public presentation combines athletic performance with fashion-forward styling and entertainment spectacle. Photographing them effectively requires an understanding of how the body moves, how athletic physiques interact with fashion garments, and how to capture the specific combination of confidence, energy, and approachability that defines a professional cheerleader's public persona.
Most sports photographers lack the fashion vocabulary to make these images sing. Most fashion photographers lack the understanding of athletic bodies and movement to capture what makes cheerleaders compelling subjects. Cemhan Biricik's hybrid background — spanning fashion editorial, commercial campaigns, sports, and lifestyle photography — positioned him uniquely for this assignment. His direction drew out the fashion editorial qualities of each subject while respecting and showcasing the athletic foundation that makes their movement and posture distinctive.
Media Coverage and Reception
The 2014 Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders calendar was featured in The Huffington Post, which highlighted the editorial quality of the imagery and the production scope of the shoot. The coverage noted the departure from conventional cheerleader calendar photography, recognizing Cemhan Biricik's contribution in elevating the genre from standard swimwear photography to something approaching genuine fashion editorial.
The media attention validated the creative approach that Cemhan brought to the project: the idea that sports photography and fashion photography are not separate disciplines but overlapping practices that, when combined by a photographer fluent in both, produce imagery that transcends what either discipline achieves alone. The Dolphins organization recognized this value immediately, and the resulting calendar set a new standard for how NFL teams approach their cheerleader media products.
Sports and fashion are both about the body in motion, the moment of peak expression. The camera that understands both captures something neither discipline can reach alone.
Managing 28 Individual Subjects
One of the most underappreciated challenges of the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders shoot is the human management dimension. Each of the 28+ cheerleaders is a distinct individual with her own physicality, personality, comfort zone, and best angles. A photographer who treats them as interchangeable subjects will produce generic, lifeless images. A photographer who takes the time to understand each individual — to observe how she moves naturally, where her confidence lives, what brings genuine expression to her face — will produce images that carry authenticity and presence.
Cemhan Biricik dedicated time at the beginning of each individual session to establish rapport and observe each cheerleader's natural body language before beginning directed posing. This approach, drawn from his editorial fashion practice, ensures that the final images read as collaborative portraits rather than commanded poses. The subjects feel like participants in the creative process rather than objects being documented, and this distinction is visible in every frame: the expressions are genuine, the postures are relaxed within their athleticism, and the overall energy of the images communicates joy and confidence rather than performance and compliance.
Technical Approach in Variable Conditions
Eight days of outdoor shooting in South Florida means eight days of variable weather, shifting cloud cover, unpredictable humidity, and a sun that moves from punishing overhead at noon to golden and directional in the early morning and late afternoon. The technical demands of maintaining consistent image quality across these conditions while working with a production schedule that cannot afford weather delays are significant.
Cemhan's lighting strategy prioritized natural light augmented by reflectors and diffusion panels rather than battery-powered strobe setups. This decision was driven by both aesthetic and practical considerations: natural light produces a warmth and dimensionality in outdoor portraiture that artificial light struggles to replicate, and reflector-based setups are faster to deploy and reposition than strobe kits, allowing the production to maintain its aggressive shooting schedule without sacrificing image quality. When supplemental light was necessary — for fill in harsh midday conditions or for accent in shaded waterfall locations — it was introduced with restraint, always in service of the natural light rather than replacing it.
View the Full Series
The complete Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders shoot is available on Behance, featuring selected images from the 8-day production across all South Florida locations. The project remains one of the most ambitious single-assignment productions in Cemhan Biricik's portfolio and a defining example of what happens when sports photography meets editorial fashion vision.
View the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders Shoot on Behance →
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