Event Photography – Page 5

Category: Event Photography

Help Portrait MUSC Kids 2011

It’s been almost a year since we held our Help-Portrait MUSC Kids events (last year we did 2 – you can read about those here and here). This year, I’ll be leading our team on Friday, December 9th at the MUSC Children’s Hospital. We can’t do weekends at the hospital, so this was the closest we could get to the actual event. The Charleston, SC Group is also planning to host 4 events simultaneously on the official day in North Charleston, Charleston, James Island, & Johns Island. So if you can’t help us out on Friday, I’m sure they could use it on Saturday.

This year the Help-Portrait organizers want everybody to be a bit more interactive with their subjects. To best understand what they mean, Jeremy Cowart tells us in this video:

I think we can do some exciting stuff with these children since we don’t have a large amount of kids that we shoot. We can really spend some time getting to know their stories and spreading the word about Help-Portrait. Some ideas I have are to do some video, which would mean that a videographer could help us out this year. Since we can’t really do hair and makeup, maybe we could incorporate some really awesome hats as props – if anyone can pull together a unique hat collection, that would be cool (maybe we could ask a local thrift store to lend some to us). How about some frames that the kids can paint? I’ll be bringing a 5×7 photo printer, so the kids can make their photos into an art project (the atrium has painting supplies). If you have any ideas, I’d really appreciate them (either here in the comments, on the Help-Portrait Community site, or on Facebook).

I also wanted to share with you some great news from the boy who was our inspiration to do this at MUSC Children’s Hospital. Jessie Dasinger has passed the 280+ day mark after his bone marrow transplant and he’s doing great. He’s back in school and back to being a normal kid again. His story is an inspiration considering that just a year ago at this time he wasn’t well enough to participate in the event.

Make sure to check our community page for all planning info regarding the event. It’s less than a month away, so please don’t be shy – lets get the conversation started!

CupcakeCamp Charleston 2011

After a year of patiently waiting, Heaven on Earth has returned to Charleston, SC. Bakers from around the low country freely give away their sugary treats to local cupcake lovers in hopes of winning the title of best tasting, most original, or best Thanksgiving themed cupcake at CupcakeCamp Charleston.

After learning our lesson from last year, we arrived early to the event and jumped on the line outside of Spirit Moves Dance Studio.

Once inside the studio, tables filled with cupcakes lined the walls. Throughout the event cupcakes came and went – what you tasted was based on what was available when it was your turn to go inside. A big improvement was the inclusion of sponsored beverages from Fiery Ron’s Home team BBQ and Coastal Coffee Roasters (who were also sponsors at BarCampCHS).

As I moved down the line, I began to notice a trend in pumpkin flavored cupcakes. At the time, I didn’t realize that there was a Thanksgiving category, so I was perplexed by the amount of pumpkiny variations. The good news is that I love pumpkin flavored stuff.

Just like last year, there was no shortage of happiness. I swear that you could end all wars with free cupcakes. Look at those campers. The bakers and volunteers were also as friendly as can be – nothing but good feelings around the studio.

I had a plate full of cupcakes to taste, and a big cup of milk to wash it down. Here’s a pic of what I got:

While I was snapping away to capture this holy day, I had the pleasure of meeting CupcakeCamp Charleston’s organizer Heather MacKey. It was cool that she recognized me from my post about last year’s event. Of course, I asked her to pose for this picture with sponsor Hazel Rider:

Hey, it’s been a while since I showed a picture of cupcakes. Here’s some more cupcakes!

Local photog and technophile Eugene Mah was on hand wearing an interesting T-Shirt. I snapped this shot of him with the proprietor of Spirit Moves who was sporting some steam punk goggles:

I do not know who won the contests yet, but once again the people in attendance were the real winners because… FREE CUPCAKES!!! My personal favorite was the cupcake that had everyone talking. A banana nut, peanut butter, & bacon cupcake. Yes, I said bacon. It sounds disgusting, but it was a down-home wall-of-sound musical party in my mouth. I’m serious, it was amazing. Look at it. Want it. Love it.

Check out my full set of photos on Flickr. Want some great news? Summerville is hosting their own CupcakeCamp event early next year, so now we don’t have to wait a whole year for this to happen again!

New Vs. Old

Kevin Seconds at Jimbo’s Rock Lounge

Last night I attended two musical performances. One was a group of budding pianists performing in their first recital, while the other was a pair of more mature punk rockers playing acoustic sets.

Mackenzie Performs At Rollings Middle School of the Arts

I started off the evening at my daughter’s middle school, which is a local magnet school for arts. She auditioned to become accepted into the school as a pianist, and in just a couple of months her skill behind the keys has skyrocketed. She played an flawless rendition of “A Journey In The Arctic” by John Thompson.

Mac’s performance (filmed by my wife on her iPhone)

The kids in her class were amazing. These 11 year olds killed! They have a really good teacher, and Mac is lucky enough to have Mrs. Shelly, who helped prepare her for school and continues to show her support.

Mac & Her Piano Teachers

After the recital, I jumped in my car and headed down to West Ashley to see punk rock legend Kevin Seconds from the band 7 Seconds perform at Jimbo’s Rock Lounge. The opening act was a couple of local punks from the band the 33’s who played very youthful punk songs about rebellion and fighting the man.

I was definitely no longer at a middle school recital anymore, with more “F*cks” in their first song than in a classic 80’s porn tape.

David Dondero

Next up was David Dondero. I had never heard of David before, and he really floored me. The songs were all extremely well written and memorable. His voice is fantastic, he kind of reminded me of what Bright Eyes would sound like without the whining.

David Dondero

Finally Kevin Seconds took the stage. Last time I saw his band 7 Seconds, I was a teenager in New York. Now, at the age of 50, Kevin tours around the world playing songs from throughout his career.

Kevin Seconds

As requested from the audience, Kevin played the 7 Seconds classic “Soul To Keep”. He preempted it by saying that for as much shit his band caught for the stuff they did in the mid-1980’s, it gets requested every night.

Kevin Seconds filmed on my iPhone

I really think these guys deserved to be playing to a packed house, but Charleston just isn’t a punk rock town. It’s quite unfortunate, because the music is really great. I don’t think they were bothered by the small turnout, in fact they seemed just happy to be out on the road playing.

Kevin Seconds Blowing The Harp

The comic relief came when some dude walked up on stage between songs and requested that Kevin play some Pink Floyd. Kevin laughed and respectfully declined. The staff however, did not appreciate the man’s actions. In fact, the bartender demanded that he leave immediately. He made the mistake of saying, “What are you gonna do about it?” and she jumped over the bar, grabbed him by the back of his neck and physically threw him out. Stupid me stood there mouth agape watching this unfold with a camera in my hand instead of up to my eye! I did manage to get this blurry shot though:

Kevin told her that she was hired as his road security if she wanted the job. I asked her if I could take a shot of her for this blog since I blew the action shot 😉

This Bartender Takes Crap From Nobody

Check out all of yesterday’s photos here on Flickr.

Ghost Walk 2011 Photo Booth

This post is going to look strikingly similar to yesterday’s, that’s because I used the same setup with some slight modifications. For the WHAIES Masquerade Ball, I had a little problem with my backdrop for the booth. I didn’t have a backdrop! UPS was very tardy with their delivery (next day does not mean next night!!) and I had to head out to the party with a makeshift backup plan. Nothing a little black gaffers tape can’t fix, MacGyver style. I used the school’s stage curtain and some black fabric to make it work. Unfortunately that meant time spent in post production correcting the color shifts between the different black elements. Booooo. This time was different!

Armed with a proper backdrop, I headed out to Summerville, SC for the Ghost Walk/ Harvest Fest/ Harvest Moon Hayride. The new challenge that arose for this booth was being outdoors and contending with very windy conditions. I was positioned up against a brick wall, but the backrop was still about a foot or so away from it. I had to bring down the height of it a bit so that it wouldn’t sail away and I used a combination of tent spikes, stones, and clamps to secure the backdrop. I also left out my umbrellas and used cardboard to flag a pair of bare flashes as the rim lights on either side. Umbrellas are pretty kite-like in the wind, but I actually like the way the non-diffused flashes look for this application. I used a softbox on a heavy-duty c-stand as my main light.

Because this photo booth was sponsored by Prudential Southern Coast Real Estate, I didn’t have to worry about collecting money, which meant the tethered laptop stayed at home and I was able to shoot away without administrative concerns (who paid for how many, associating file numbers with names, etc). I shot over 100 portraits in 3 hours! You can check out all of the photos here.

Mistress Mira Battles Harry (Kegan) Potter!

With that, I’m done with Halloween photo booths for now. Time to carve some pumpkins in preparation for my absolute favorite holiday of the year!

WHAIES Masquerade Ball Photo Booth

This evening I had the pleasure of sponsoring & running a photo booth for an event at Windsor Hill Arts infused Elementary School for their Masquerade Ball. I tried to do something different this time by bringing a portable photo printer with me to print out photos on the sport for the kids. Boy was that a challenge! I wasn’t prepared for the backlog of photos that needed to be printed as I concentrated on shooting. By the time my wife Amy realized we weren’t going to be able to print everything by the end of the party, we were scrambling for ways to service everyone in a fair and timely manner.

Most of the kids and parents were really cool about the delay, and I’m deeply sorry to those who had to wait. For those who opted to get their photo delivered, your child will get them this week at school. In the mean time, please feel free to browse the gallery here. You can purchase different sized prints or share the photos on Facebook with your friends! Amy & I are proud to be able to raise some extra money for the PTA while providing our community with this service at a minimal cost. We’ll keep trying to find the best way to make it work while keeping the costs for the families low!

Coastal Carolina Fair 2011

Much like last year, the year before that, and for 50 something years before that, the Coastal Carolina Fair has come to Exchange Park in Ladson, SC. Actually, they’re celebrating the 55th year of the fair in the Charleston area this year – that’s over a half-century of fried Kool-Aid (or Oreos, Twinkies, sticks of butter). This year I went with the family, but I still managed to get a bunch of shots of the fun. I also wrote up a similar post last year, so feel free to check that out.

This photo of the taxi cab tourist in NYC won an honorable mention in the Division 1 photography contest! Just thought I’d share that with you in case you aren’t able to check out the art exhibits. If you do go there, please notice (and laugh at) my giant self-portrait that is keeping a half-bearded eye on the exhibit hall. Thanks.

We arrived just before sunset, and I have to say that I was disappointed by the sky this evening. The clouds were perfect for a spectacular southern light show, but just after I took this shot, they vanished and we got one of those shapeless sunsets. Oh well, there’s always next year 😉

I did try to compensate for the lack of definition with a graduated pink Cokin filter that I held in front of my lens. I also tried to get creative with this shot:

Something about this guy in front of the balloons caught my attention. I wonder how many times Old Man Jenkins here had his plans foiled at the old amusement park by some meddling kids before he took a road gig?

The big star of the show for me is always the big Ferris Wheel. I just love the patterns of light and the plethora of angles to capture them. This year I decided to go head on.

Kegan found out that he does not like heights on the skylift.

Here he is, holding on like a trooper:

The kids made good use of their “all you can ride” hand stamps.

I’m pretty sure I’ve taken this same shot of these same ducks every year I go to the fair. As fun as the fair is, it really is very consistent. And by consistent I mean it’s the same dang thing every dang year!

In the petting zoo, I thought I would get all artsy with this close-up of a cow’s head:

But then she did this, and I couldn’t resist:

The fair wouldn’t be the fair without some of that newfangled country music I didn’t grow up listening to. From where I stand, the new country folks basically took all of their cues from 80’s hair metal but got rid of the distortion pedals and added a fiddle. But, there was a huge crowd of people there to see Colt Ford, and I snuck up to the stage to grab a couple of shots and see what all the commotion was about. By the way, the security are always really cool at the fair if you ask to take some shots first!

Good old Colt must be a big deal around here, because even the people not watching the concert were singing along as they walked around the food court in earshot of the show. We started to head to the car when I got taken by surprise by the fireworks show. I really shouldn’t have been surprised, because they do it every night at the fair. It was a pretty good excuse to pull the camera back out.

And with that we hurried to the car so we could wait in traffic. Another successful family trip to the fair. I can’t wait until next year!

BarCampCHS Session Wrap-Up

Group Photo of the BarCampCHS attendees

Yesterday was the 3rd annual BarCampCHS event, and like last year it was held over at the College of Charleston campus in downtown Charleston, SC. As mentioned in an earlier post, I held a session on Off-Camera Flash. Before I talk about the highlights of my presentation, I wanted to share a bit of the BarCamp experience.

30 Seconds To Pitch

After you register and get your bag o’ swag, the attendees gather in an auditorium and the people who plan on holding sessions get 30 seconds each to pitch their idea. As you tell everyone what you plan to do, a counter is counting down behind you (a few people did have to get the mic taken away from them mid-thought). In reality, you only got about 25 seconds to pitch since people started counting down the final 5 seconds. I found it quite entertaining, especially when some mouthy participant trying to hawk a couponing network-marketing scheme went over his 30 seconds and tried to continue without the mic. He was followed by @CaananTully who pitched a session on saving money at the supermarket without using coupons. The crowd applauded loudly. Afterward, the attendees lined up to vote on which sessions they’d like to attend.

With that, sessions began about a myriad of topics, although it was highly concentrated on computer programming. Some of the more popular sessions focused on geek culture, including a session about modifying old Nintendo Entertainment System games such as Super Mario Brothers.

Eugene Mah Flaunts His Bathrobe Style

Eugene Mah took a lot of great photos of the days events, and they can be seen here. There is a BarCampCHS Flickr Group to check out, as well as my full set of photos. Twitterer @Pataford has a Ustream channel with some video he took. If you have some content I missed, please let me know in the comments! Now, on to my creative session:

Off-Camera Flash 101 Session

Slides from my BarCampCHS presentation

I started off the presentation by a short introduction and recap of my session from last year on photo editing. I showed some of the photos we made and edited and started talking about the creative use of lighting in the shots. This led to a brief discussion on why you would want to use off-camera flash. I also touched a little on why you would ever use your on-camera flash, and showed an example of fill flash outdoors during a bright and sunny day.

Next, we talked about shooting in manual mode – both on the camera and on the flash. We talked about the benefits of TTL as well as its shortcomings and why it’s important to know how to use manual flash, especially when working with light modifiers. I explained how when dealing with off-camera flash, you can control your ambient light with your shutter speed and your flash power with your aperture settings. Someone asked about ISO settings, and I explained that you want to shoot in your camera’s native ISO when dealing with lighting to produce consistent and clean images.

The next part of the session dealt with the different methods of getting your flash off of your camera. The first method was using bounce flash. I explained that even though the flash is still technically on the camera, the light source is now whatever you are bouncing the flash off of, which is indeed off of the camera. @TheKingOfGames volunteered to be our model as we took some sample shots. We started with a shot with the flash on the camera to reference the difference.

Straight Flash on the Camera

As you can see, the shot is not all that flattering. Someone in the class said “It looks like something you might see on Facebook”. I then showed the differences when bouncing the flash off of the ceiling or wall. In the following shot, I used the projector screen to bounce off of, which was really bright and reflective:

Bounce Flash Off A Wall

You can immediately see the difference in the quality of light. I talked about the softness and direction of the light, which made for a more defined image whereas the straight flash shot was very flat.

Next we talked about using a wire to move the flash off of the camera. The benefit being reliability while being able to cheaply transmit TTL information, with the downside being limitations of the cable’s length. We briefly talked about the different standards in cables, including PC Cables, 1/8″ Audio-Style Cables, and TTL Cables. I had a TTL cable that I use with my bracket, so we took a test shot using the bare flash:

Bare Flash Using a TTL Wire

Since I only had a short cable, I was able to demonstrate the limitation of the distance I could place the flash away from the camera (about arm’s length).

We then talked about wireless flash. I covered the three main methods of shooting wireless: Optical, Infrared, & Radio. We discussed the benefits and issues with each method. Optical is cheap but unreliable. Infrared can transmit TTL information, can be cheap depending on the hardware you already own (it also can be quite expensive if your camera doesn’t support it), and how you can control the flash settings from the camera. It’s also limited to line of sight and is very unreliable outdoors. I took a test shot using the pop-up flash on my D90 in commander mode to fire an SB-600 on a mini tripod to camera right:

IR Wireless Flash Test Shot Using an OmniBounce Diffuser

I spent the most time on radio triggers. I talked about the Pocket Wizards and Chinese knock-offs. I explained that you can buy about six Cactus v5 triggers for the price of one Pocket Wizard Plus II and according to many reviews and tests, the Cactus v5 is more reliable! I also touched on the newer Pocket Wizards and Radio Poppers that are able to transmit TTL information. I explained that for the cost of that convenience, you could be investing in some great lights! Sure it would be nice to justify having the top of the line triggers, but there’s no shame in buying a set of reliable knock-offs when you can achieve the same end-result for a fraction of the cost.

Photo by Daniel Vice @sharpstick on Twitter

I started doing some shots using an umbrella. I demonstrated how to control the flash power by changing the aperture, and then mixing ambient light with flash by adjusting the shutter speed. I showed how to match the ambient florescent lighting and flash lighting by gelling the flash with a green gel and setting the white balance in the camera to florescent.

Umbrella Look

I also talked about sync speed. I demonstrated what happens when you shoot faster than your sync speed:

Shooting Faster Than Your Sync Speed

I then changed the umbrella and set it up as a shoot-through umbrella and showed how it created a different look.

Photo by Daniel Vice @sharpstick on Twitter

I took a few shots as I moved the light around to get a softer look.

Shoot-Through Umbrella Look

I also altered the model’s position a bit and added another flash onto my camera at its lowest power setting to try and achieve a small catchlight in his eyes. This was our final result, which will hopefully make for a nicer Facebook profile pic than what we started with 😉

Final Shot

We did some Q&A, and I shared some resources for learning about camera lighting. Here’s my list:

joemcnally.com – Joe McNally
strobist.com – David Hobby
zackarias.com – Zack Arias
kelbytraining.com -Scott Kelby

I also wanted to add a pair of new eBooks by Piet Van den Eynde on Craft & Vision. You can pick up each of the two eBooks for $5 each, or buy them both at the same time for only $8. He’s done an excellent and thorough job in the first book of introducing the reader to off-camera flash, and takes you much further in the second one. I think it’s definitely worth more than $8!

Tech Specs For My Presentation

Gear:
Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 VC
Flash: Nikon SB-600
Light Stand: Manfrotto 5001B
Umbrella: Photek Softliter II
Wireless Triggers: Cactus v5
Gels: Cokin Photogels
Mini Tripod: Jobi GorillaPod

I ran the presentation on an iPad hooked up through a projector using Keynote for the slides and Photosnitch for the live demo. I used an EyeFi wireless SD card to transmit the photos to the iPad sans cables.

The Fall Is Awesome!

Day 251 - Sullivan's Island Lighthouse Sunset

This is the best time of year to capture sunsets here in the Charleston area. The weather is beautiful and the sky seems to catch on fire for a brief moment. There’s also no shortage of fun stuff coming up, such as corn mazes, haunted house attractions, hayrides, and pumpkin picking. Halloween just might be my favorite holiday ever – it brings people together. What other holiday makes you go out and ring on your neighbor’s doorbell so they can give you treats?

I have a busy month ahead of me as well. One of the highlights include a wedding shoot this weekend on Folly Beach. I’m pretty stoked about getting some sunset portraits of the happy couple. October 22nd is BarCamp! If you remember, I did a session last year on photo editing (you can check out the post about that here). This year I’ve proposed a session called “Off-Camera Flash 101”

If you’ve never been to or heard of BarCamp, it unfortunately has nothing to do with alcohol. It’s a conference where the attendees are the attraction. Basically anybody who attends can pitch a session to teach. It’s really fun and you get a kick-ass T-Shirt. It costs a mere $10 to participate – get a ticket now!

Next up, I’m doing a photo booth for the Summerville Ghost Walk/ Harvest Fest/ Harvest Moon Hayride sponsored by DREAM and Summerville JSL. That’s on Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011 from 6:00PM-9:00PM. I’ll be on the side of the Prudential Southern Coast office at 112 W Doty Ave in Summerville, SC. I hear that Mistress Mira will be doing some fortune telling as well 😉

October 27th-November 5th is the return of the Coastal Carolina Fair. Check out my recap rom last year. I just ordered my prints for the Photography Contest. This year they have changed the rules slightly from last year as you can only submit 3 photos now. I guess the contest has grown a bit! You can see the official rules here.

Of course, I’ve saved the best for last. Just read my rundown of last year’s CupcakeCamp event. It was the single most amazing event ever conceived. All you can eat free cupcakes, no questions asked. If you don’t want to go to this, you’re not human. CupcakeCamp will be on November 5, 2011 3:00PM-5:00PM at Spirit Moves. Check out the Facebook event page here. Look at the sweetness:

4th Annual Worldwide Photo Walk

Scott Kelby has organized the 4th global photowalk this weekend, and this year Charleston had two groups of walkers. After sweating my way in the daytime during last year’s photowalk, I opted for the evening walk led by Eugene Mah.

The group met at the fountain by Charleston’s waterfront park. I swear, I never made it out of the park! While we were setting up to take our group photo, I noticed some dancers practicing in the grass. As soon as the walk started, I walked up to the dancers and asked them if I could take some pictures of them. They were no strangers to the lens, so they were more than helpful models! Taz started out by doing leaps over me as I laid down in the grass:

Natalya was up next. I decided to mount my SB-600 on my tripod to try and illuminate her face as she was jumping. It was not easy trying to time the leaps – I’ve got about a dozen shots of her just before or just after the precipice of her jump. I did get this one though, which is all I needed 😉

While I was rolling around in the grass with a camera to my eye, a familiar face popped up – It was my local photog buddy Marty! He got some great shots of the girls as well.

As Natalya was resting, I made a casual portrait:

The sun was setting, so we moved over to the barrier wall to take advantage of the beautiful sky. Unfortunately there were no clouds, but I think the clear sky definitely influenced my compositions.

The light was quickly fading, I focused on shooting Natalya, while Marty was shooting Taz. We were both using off-camera flashes to light out subjects. I shot most of my shots with a Tokina 11-16mm ultra wide angle lens wide open at f/2.8. Natalya was doing splits (pictured at the top of this post) and stretches on top of the wall that would make a parent squeamish. She was awesome at this!

At this point, Marty and I realized that we spent almost the whole walk in one spot! More like a photo shoot than a walk – so we headed over to the fountain to get some long exposure night-shots of the water.

After that we went to the rendezvous point, a cool bar/grill called The Griffon. While waiting, we decided to shoot the old Chevy parked in front of the gelato place next to the bar.

I do love to take long exposures of people walking. This group of sailors made this shot:

We met up with some other walkers and went inside the Griffon to tell our war stories and watch the last half of Clemson’s trouncing of Virginia Tech. I shot the table next to us just because I had the shooting bug in me and found it hard to stop.

Marty, Eugene, & I went up on the roof of the parking garage where we were parked and tried to get some last minute shots. I had nothin’. It was late, surprisingly cold, and I was tired. My tiny little travel tripod was not having the wind up on the roof, and the shots I took up there are proof! Instead of making excuses, I made my way home 🙂

You can check out the full set of shots I made on my Flickr set. Also check out Marty’s set while you’re over there! Chuck Boyd was also on hand as were many members of his 21st Century Photography Group.

Which One: King Of Pops Umbrella

Chase Jarvis has a bit that he does on his blog where he asks his readers to pick from two alternate versions of shots he’s made and explain why you like one over the other. Here’s an example of his latest one. I thought I’d try it out here with two shots taken within seconds of each other. They are also shown in the order they were made in. I shot these with my Nikon Coolpix P7000 at the 2011 Carolina Green Fair this past Sunday in Marion Square. The subject is the iconic King of Pops rainbow umbrella.

Shot #1

Shot #2

So which one do you like, shot #1 or shot #2? Why? Sound off here in the comments, or on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

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