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Articles Tagged with: event photography

Help-Portrait Charleston SC 2013

That picture says it all. Little Dereon was the first to come visit us in the atrium at MUSC Children’s Hospital on Friday for our annual Help-Portrait event that we organize there every December. She was also the last to get her photo taken! It took her a while to warm up to me, and she wanted to watch the other children with a curious eye to see what the deal was. The whole morning she was wearing a mask that covered her beautiful smile, and when she finally built up the courage to get her picture taken, she took off that mask and instantly transformed into an excited and confident little girl. I couldn’t think of a better story to explain what our Help-Portrait event at the children’s hospital means – It’s a way to make these kids and their families feel normal.

The holidays are an emotional time, and to add the struggle that these kids are going through is not easy to say the least. To give them any experience that lets them feel like regular kids is important in keeping them hopeful and strong. We’re just but one event of the hundreds of different kinds that are held every year for the hospital, but to see the happiness in Danielle’s face and the gratitude from her mom, you can see why we get so excited for this event every year:

How about little Kloeiann, who came out like a rock star? We had her and her mom design a sign for her to hold up for one of her pictures, and very awesome is quite appropriate for her 🙂

We also had a frame crafting station set up for the kids to design their own picture frame to put one of their photos in.

Thanks to Amy, Crystal, & Christina who volunteered to make this happen with me again this year. Also, thanks to the staff at MUSC Children’s hospital for letting us do this every year!

The photos are up on my gallery here, and there’s also a set on Flickr.

No Cameras Allowed? No Problem.

I love shooting live performances for my own personal enjoyment. I love music, and I love watching musicians perform. I also love photography. Why wouldn’t I want to marry the two passions? Years ago, people thought that taking professional photos at a concert was a bad thing because you might do something detrimental to the artist’s bottom line with them. I guess there was a market for nice photos of Jimmy Page on the black market. Who knows? But today you can watch a concert minutes after it happens on YouTube because everyone in attendance is Martin Scorsese with their cell phones.

There is so much punk rock in this photo it hurts... Oh, and your belt's upside down Mr. Pop. #riotfest #toronto #iggyandthestooges #iggypop #mikewatt #theminutemen #rawpower #punkrock #rocknroll #legends #music

Most venues won’t even bother mentioning anything about a shitty camera, but if you have a nice camera with you then you must be a bootlegging son-of-a-bitch and not someone who enjoys the art of photography. I don’t know, it all seems silly to carry old ways of thinking into modern times. You don’t like that people are holding their phones up to snap pictures at every event? Too bad – it’s what we do in 2013. In 2020 we’ll be shooting it with our Google Contact Lenses, so you won’t have to worry about people having to lift their hands in the air like they just don’t care. The world has changed and we’re all being photographed and videoed everywhere we go.

I’m not even trying to be rebellious or anything, I just find it strange that venues try to control the creation of well executed photography but have no problem with truly shitty cell phone pics. If the artist themselves wishes to not be photographed, then that’s a completely different story. People have the right to say no and we should respect that.

So, what’s my secret for bringing in a DSLR to just about any venue? I just walk in with it strapped on my shoulder and pay no attention to it. Most security guards don’t care, and more importantly most can’t tell the difference between a professional or consumer camera anyway. The most recent festival I went to, the security guard asked me what kind of camera I had and I told her it was a fixed lens still camera. She looked at me funny and said “OK, as long as it’s not one of those cameras you can change lenses on”. I just smiled and walked on by. I didn’t lie – it had a 50mm fixed lens on it – I just didn’t elaborate on it at all. It’s pretty easy if you don’t make a big deal about it. The worst that can happen is that they tell you that you can’t bring it in. I’m still waiting for the day when that happens!

Why not another @thereplacements photo? #paulwesterberg & #daveminehan #thereplacements #reunion #toronto #canada #riotfest #rocknroll #guitar #singing #music #live

Help-Portrait MUSC Kids 2012

Photo by William Long

On Friday morning, I was joined by 5 great volunteers to gift portraits to the families of children at MUSC Children’s Hospital in Charleston, SC. This was the 3rd Help-Portrait event I’ve led at the children’s hospital and every year it gets better.

Top Row: William Long, John Lindroth, Joseph Nienstedt
Bottom Row: Katee Cornette, Jen Pfeffer, Kathy Hare

Due to the nature of the event we hold and HIPA, I don’t ask the subjects too much about the nature of their conditions. Instead, my philosophy is a little different than most other Help-Portrait events. My goal for the team is to make these kids and their families feel normal. We treat them as if they were coming into a studio and walk them through the whole process. We also provide them with craft photo frames that they design for their portraits, which is always fun for the kids.

Photo by William Long

One of the children asked to see my camera, so I showed him how it works. Then he wanted to take pictures of our next subject, so we let him – and the portraits turned out perfect! In fact, we printed those out and gave them to the subject, and they loved them. This is exactly what we wanted to provide for these families – a fun event that made them forget why they were in a hospital.

Photo by Kathy Hare

Here’s one of the portraits that Tyreq made:

Photo by Tyreq

There are a lot of meaningful things that the families and hospital staff say, but one that sticks out was a parent who’s child was too sick to leave the room but really wanted to participate. Because it was the parent requesting it, we were able to send a photographer into the room and take their family’s portraits – something they haven’t been able to do because of their situation. The photograph meant so much to the parent that she figured out a way to make it happen. This was such an example of the power of a photograph and what it means to someone in need.

Photo by William Long

Please take a moment and watch this slideshow of images from the event. I hope the images move you even slightly as much as they moved us:

CupcakeCamp Charleston 2012

Listen, I just can’t find any more things to say about CupcakeCamp that I haven’t said here, here, or here. But, you need to understand that it still remains the greatest event ever conceived. Bakers make cupcakes. People eat cupcakes. Nobody loses.

So how could we improve on this experience? Easy, you bake cupcakes for it! That’s exactly what my wife decided to do. She did the research and narrowed it down to two recipes:

Harry Potter themed “Butterbeer” cupcakes

“Sweet Potato Casserole” cupcakes

I’ll tell you what, those Butterbeer cupcakes barely made it onto the display. As soon as I took these pictures, they were snapped up in record time! Don’t mess with the power of Harry Potter.

Here’s some other shots of cupcakes for your enjoyment:

You can check out the gallery of shots in this Facebook album as well. Be sure to tag yourself in any of the shots! See you at CupcakeCamp Summerville on Saturday, April 13, 2013 at 3 pm!

A Night Out

Last night was the 29th annual National Night Out. It was also the first time the neighborhood I live in participated in it. I was on hand with my camera to capture some of the fun!

Local businesses sponsored giveaways and provided some goodies, such as Rita’s, the local Italian Ice shop!

When the sun went down, a giant inflatable movie screen went up and we watched a series of cartoons to keep the kiddies entertained. Our neighborhood watch did a fantastic job organizing this special event despite the dreary weather, but everyone had a great time. I hope they keep the tradition going! You can check out the rest of the photos on my community’s Facebook page.

Fitness Portraits Tonight!

Sorry for the last minute notice on this, but I’ll be over at Eco Fitness in Mount Pleasant, SC tonight shooting portraits of club members, trainers, and staff at their club tonight, July 23rd, 2012. The event starts at 5:30PM, and there is also a Sushi tasting party courtesy of Charleston’s O-ku.

If you’re in the area, please come on by and say hi, have some free sushi, and get your photo made for their website!

Maybe Amy Hill (pictured above) will jump for you live in person if you ask nicely enough 😉

Eileen & Gary

On a beautiful summer’s day in June, 3 people joined together as a family. Eileen & her son Tristan joined Gary Turner in matrimony at Rockville Presbyterian Church in scenic Rockville, SC. This is their story in photos.

Something borrowed: a family heirloom…

The church – Rockville Presbyterian:

The ceremony:

The newlyweds:

The Family:

The Friends:

The reception:

Time to head out on their honeymoon:

Change For Change Portraits

The 2nd installment of the Change for Change Art Show has come and gone, and organizer Darryl LaPlante did a fantastic job of putting this whole thing together. Don’t let this bad ass look fool you, the man is a giant softie:

I had originally planned on attending and checking out the festivities like a citizen, but after a photo shoot got rescheduled at the last minute I decided to lug out my gear to the Mixon Barn and setup a portrait studio to work the show like a soldier instead. I had about 3 hours to plan the whole thing out, including designing & printing up these fliers to hand out:

Setup under a canopy strategically located between the bar and the porta-potties, this is where I made all of these photographs:

Show Me The Pictures

Sooooo, if you are one of my ~~victims~~ subjects, you’re wondering what I’m doing with all of those portraits we made. Well, on Facebook, you can check out the whole set here. Please go ahead and like my page and tag yourself or your friends in the photos. Share the whole album with your friends!

Also, If you really dig the photos, you can purchase prints of them here. Profits from the sale of these portraits will go to Change For Change to benefit Water Missions International. If your significant other got his/her portrait made, you pretty much will get the best Karma points in the world for buying him/her one of these, so get on that!

Here’s a slideshow of them all:

I definitely had a blast interacting with everybody. Some familiar faces, some new ones, and some I didn’t even know that I knew. Some of the Charleston art scenes’ best were on hand and I had a blast talking shop with them all.

Since there were also some talented local photographers in attendance, I was able to hand my Nikon over to one of them. Ryan Belk took over shutterbug duties and snapped this shot of me:

It’s nice being on the other side of the lens every once in a while. A beard like mine demands to be seen!

Thanks again to the organizers – I hope we made some loot for the cause 😉

CupcakeCamp Summerville 2012

The third time is a charm they always say. Who the heck are they? I could do this on a weekly basis if I wasn’t afraid of reversing all the dieting I’ve been so hard at work on this year. While this was the first installment of CupcakeCamp for Summerville, it was the third event in the Charleston area. That means 3X the heavenly goodness. If you’ve read this blog before, you know that I’ve gushed about this event here and here.

This time, the venue was previous camp sponsor Coastal Coffee Roasters, which is perfect as there are no better bedfellows with tasty pastries than tasty coffee. People patiently lined up outside on this beautifully perfect spring day to partake in the free indulgences inside.

The theme for this event was “Springtime”, with lot’s of bright colors and fresh tasting ideas flowing, the bakers really did a great job of capturing it. Another theme that was prevalent was coffee!

As I walked into the venue, the sounds of The Pixies and Arcade Fire filled the air, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee tingled my nostrils, and the beauty of the pastries was matched only by the loveliness of the bakers. This all led to a sense of belonging. These are definitely “my people”.

And lets not forget the other stars of the event, the tasters! I commented to a couple of folks inside that along with fire and the wheel, holding an event specifically to give away free cupcakes is among the greatest ideas in human history. Yeah, I probably scared them with my enthusiasm.

The Hannifords were on hand not only as volunteers, but also as bakers!

Hey, it’s been a while since we saw some graphic cupcake porn:

And nobody was happier to me than my own kids, who get to follow me on these cupcake adventures. Happy until the sugar crash at least 😉

I can’t wait until next time, which now that there are two annual events in the Charleston area, wont be very long! Until then, we all can look at this set of photos on Flickr.

Summerville Relay For Life 2012

Last night I volunteered to shoot a “Summerville Superheroes” photo booth at the Summerville Relay for Life event at Summerville High School. For a $1 donation, you got one of these superhero trading cards to post on Facebook! If you were one of the subjects, please head over to this Facebook album to get your photo – Don’t forget to tag your friends as well as yourself in the photos and share our page. If you’re not the Facebooking type, you can also download your photo from here.

My family and I had a blast – A big shout-out to the Sweetgrass Pediatrics team for including us in this special event!

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