TattooLaPalooza: Portraits, Piercings, and Pabst Blue Ribbon (Photos)

Photography by Pamela Wasabi

View more photos from TattooLaPalooza 2012 here.

Some of us will remember this weekend forever as a festival of Miami Heat-fueled celebration. Others will remember it for a very different reason: It's written right there on their bodies.

Every year around this time, the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown lends its space to some of the most dedicated attention-getters and pain lovers, those whose skin is a canvas for the dark, pop-art, contemporary artists at Miami's own three-day tattoo convention TattooLaPalooza.

Walking down the isles of the show, we captured tattoo artists who proudly showed us pieces done by another tattoo artist at the convention. It was a back-and-forth race to meet, greet, and photograph the diverse skin art, depicting lobsters eating rats, goddesses eating hearts, dolls trapped inside a brain. Think of it as an eye-catching needle banquet.

As opposed to other years where we couldn't stop snapping photos, our Sunday visit was a quiet one. Blame it on the rain, or the hangover from the championship celebrations. But the talent was not scarce. The artists were at work.