WPPI 2016 - Las Vegas

As I complete my time at WPPI in Las Vegas (forth year attending), I continue to come back because each year is different. New people, new experiences, new parties (which I usually skip). 

Every year, I organize a shoot to experiment and practice.  This year I worked with a makeup artist I worked with last year, Bri, and asked her to suggest a model instead of me conducting my own search.  Thanks to the crew (see below) that braved a very long walk through the desert, getting rained on briefly and cold weather (for Vegas)...all to get to our beautiful destination in the Red Rock Canyon.   Here are some behind-the-scenes (BTS) followed by the results.

The day before, I attended a completely unplanned shoot that someone else organized. They planned the location, hired the models and I just showed up to shoot. As it turned out, this was a great way for me to meet some new people. Here are a few images from that shoot.  

Now to the classes. I didn't attend as many sessions as I had in years past.  I like that this conference is not all about the presenters, the classes, and the expo.  I attended a great talk with Dane Sanders about building your business from the ground up. He outlined categories to think about when evaluating your business, whether you're just starting out or have been at it for a while.  Since I've left I've started to look more into a book he suggested called Deep Work.  More on this soon.

Expo floor

Next was a talk with Jen Rozenbaum. She's a NY based boudoir photographer.   We have mutual friends through the photography community and I hadn't heard her speak in the past so I'm glad I had the chance to see her this time. She's great and I loved that her personality came through in her talk which makes it so much more fun.  I also attended a social media talk with Susan Stripling that was enlightening. Through her talk I learned that her competition is my favorite NY based wedding photographer, Ryan Brenizer.  Interesting.  She had some good suggestions about what tools to use and why and how to automate a lot of the interactions with social media. 

My last class was a lighting class with Joe McNally. Love him! He's very funny and such a wealth of knowledge. He admitted from the beginning that he had no agenda and was just winging it. He took some questions from the audience and then started to experiment with light and color and explain it as he went along. Here are some images he made during the talk. 

Joe McNally's images playing with color and light

Thanks WPPI.  It's been fun!  Until next year.

Red Rock Canyon crew:
Model: Danae
MUA: Bri
MUA Assistant: Alessa

2nd Annual Company Party: Stride

Stride just had their 2nd annual company party.  Things are going great for them and they are proud of what they've accomplished in such a short period of time.

Debbie Madden, CEO (left), Company meeting space (right, top), Striders engaged in dialog (right, bottom)

I was brought in to capture the company event, shoot some additional interviews that are a part of a recruiting video we're putting together for them (check some BTS shots already posted).  On the same day, we also grabbed a headshot of their new VP of Client Services and wrangled them into a full group shot so we can see how much they've grown as a company from year to year.

This company meeting didn't feel 'corporate'.  It didn't feel forced.  It felt like they were a team of like-minded people after a goal of being the most sought after Agile consultancy in the world.  Doing it all with a great attitude and a respect for a work/life balance is pretty hard to find.

This event wasn't covered by me alone.  I had some great help:
Theresa Keil: 2nd shooting, video interviews
Jessica Cuevas: Event photography, assistant

Web -> http://DarrinEstepPhotography.com
G+ -> http://plus.google.com/+DarrinEstepPhotography/
Facebook -> https://www.facebook.com/DarrinEstepPhotography
Twitter -> https://twitter.com/destep001 

Bottle & Bottega Corporate Event

What’s not to enjoy about events where people are getting together and having fun?  I’ve done a few events now for Bottle & Bottega and its always a great time!  Its interesting how there’s consistently trepodation as people enter the room (especially for corporate events since they are sometimes not told what their activity is until they arrive) and fears are quickly alleviated as the activity is explained by Rupa and her team.  

There’s lots of preparation that goes into planning the event.  Here are some shots of the preparation in progress.

The painting instruction begins and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves.

Rupa, the owner of the North Jersey Bottle & Bottega pulls double-duty this time and is teaching in addition to overseeing the event.

There were about 50 people at this event.  Here are a few taken while “working” on their art.

Each of the three tables gathered to present their final masterpiece.  I’m sure they’ll be hung throughout the offices shortly.

Web -> http://DarrinEstepPhotography.com
G+ -> http://plus.google.com/+DarrinEstepPhotography/
Facebook -> https://www.facebook.com/DarrinEstepPhotography
Twitter -> https://twitter.com/destep001 

Special thanks to: 
Tanya @ the Basking Ridge Country Club
Rupa and her team 

Stefania's 40th Birthday

As a referral from someone I used to work with, he connected me with Stefania and after a conversation about what she wanted she hired me for the gig.  It was a special occasion.  A 40th Birthday Party in Williamsburg Brooklyn.  This was held at the Wythe Hotel.  A very hip place in Brooklyn that had a line of people outside to get in - as I left the event at 1:00 AM.  Not something I'm used to these days.

Stefania had the idea of bringing some props to get people in front of a backdrop to have something entertaining for the group.  It did actually did the trick - but not until the end of the night.  The venue had some very attractive food for the guests to enjoy.

All the goods were out for snacking!

Great food and conversation prevailed.

Several people taking part in the props.

Blowing out the candles

Happy Birthday Stefania!

Agile 2014 Event

I've either been attending or covering the Agile Day event for many years at this point.  Its a great crowd and a bit of a reunion since I run into people I've worked with for over 10 years.  For the past several years its been at Pace University. 

Joe Krebs (on the left, above) has been running the show for several years now and has announced that he'll be passing the torch for next year.  It'll be exciting to see how the show evolves in the future.

Large crowd joined in for the keynote speaker.

This year, I managed to grab a few shots of a live-blogger of sorts.  He had some great sketches.

Lots of great speakers and reuniting.

Another sketch and juggling?  Yes, juggling.

The afternoon wrapped up with the Open Space.  Joe kicked off the introduction of the concept which is for the audience to determine what the topics are and the time slot and then if people are interested, there will be a conversation.  You can come and go as you please.  It can make for interesting conversation.

Bottle & Bottega: Team building Event

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve recently teamed up with Bottle & Bottega which is a paint and sip studio where you can bring some wine, food, friends and they have artists on hand to help you create your own masterpiece on canvas.

I tagged along to a team building event with Bottle & Bottega for Bayer at the Skytop Lounge in the Poconos.  The plan was for me to shoot video with the goal of capturing the event, featuring the painting and teamwork and ultimately the final mural the group put together.  In addition, I planned to interview as many people as I could get to sit down with me to give a sense of what their experience was like.  It all went even better than expected.

Upon arrival, I noticed one thing that was missing for me: a space to interview others.  I scanned the property and what I ended up with was an outside setup that unless I would have told you it was outside, you wouldn’t have known any different.  It happened to be a pretty hot/humid night so that was a little tough but everyone made it through the interview without a hitch.

After a couple of rounds with Bottle & Bottega, I have a finished product that they love and I’m proud to show.  I look forward to more events with this group! 

Music Licensed through Marmoset: Love and Oceans (Instrumental) by The Dimes

America's Night Of Hope Event

Back in January of 2013 I reconnected on a shoot of mine with a high school friend, Eric Forsythe.  I found out during that time that he is a full-time, very accomplished photographer out of Houston, TX. We've been in touch ever since.

A few months ago an opportunity came up for us to work a pretty large event together. Eric is the main photographer for Joel Osteen and they had an event called "America's Night Of Hope" planned for Yankee Stadium on June 6th.  Eric asked me to help shoot it.

A chance to work with a friend and all access to Yankee Stadium!?  That's a "yes"!  I picked up Eric at his hotel in the city and we parked near a train station that would take us right to the stadium.  Once we arrived, we met with the other photographers and marketing folks to go over the game plan for photography coverage during the event.

They ran through a rehearsal which we used to get an idea of placement and timing.  Very helpful.  Shortly after that we grabbed a little food before heading off to capture the main event. I was set to cover the stage from the stands and could roam anywhere to get the best shot.  Eric and one other photographer were on either side of the stage.

Composite of 4 images.  I'm certainly not a Photoshop wizard but this definitely gives the full scope of a sold-out Yankee Stadium.

Nice event!  Joel sold out Yankee Stadium (approximately 50,000 seats) so I'd call it a success even if that were the only measurement.  Looking forward to future work with Eric.

Agile NYC Promo Video

Back in September, I connected with Joe Krebs again to shoot material that would be used for a promotional video for the Agile NYC event that happens annually.  As you can imagine, there's a lot of planning and effort that goes into putting a day together that includes speakers, vendors, workshops, entertainers, keynote speakers, etc.  My role was to capture the day and showcase the vibe and the energy of both the presenters and the speakers.

As I started to think about what I wanted to see in a video, I knew I wanted to have Joe anchor the structure of the video so I had him talk about what the structure of the current event was and talk a little about what might be coming up next year.  I used this as a jumping off point for other material I show.  As was typical for this kind of thing, there's A LOT of material that I shoot that I don't show.  It gives you options as you start to tell the story and it can also provide ways to parse up smaller bits to feature in other ways.

After several revisions and working closely with Joe on the final output, I'm happy to show the finished result.  Check out the Agile NYC page for more information and future event details.

Andrew's Bar Mitzvah

April was a busy month.  We had my daughter's birthday, a wedding I shot with a friend, a birthday party I shot the next day, some new video work I took on, and a family Bar Mitzvah in CT.  ​

​My disclaimer for this event is that I was an attendee, not a hired photographer.  Although, I did bring a couple things with me just in case I got the urge to capture the family event.  I felt awkward as I walked into the party and wasn't there to work the event.  On the other hand, it was nice to just shoot what I was interested in.  Here are some of my favorites.

And the last set of images here are pretty fun.  Emersyn held her own against the older kids at a game on musical chairs.  She lost to the Bar Mitzvah boy, Andrew.​

Marian & Antwan's Wedding

As a follow-up to my previous post for the wedding of Marian & Antwan I wanted to put together an album layout from the images captured as a second shooter.  It doesn't give you the entire flow since my role is to help the primary shooter get what he needs.  There were however, a few opportunities for me to capture images and what I'm posting here is a result of those moments.  I picked out a few of my favorites to give you a sense of how I experienced the event from start to end.

 

I arrived in the morning with the task of shooting the groom getting ready.  Uh, didn't work out exactly because they were already ready!  Hmm...go with it, right?  So, we shot a variety of shots with the guys in the house where they were getting ready.  There was a really cute little boy that I wanted to feature.  The image below is the result.  I also shot some reflection off the party bus as the guys were waiting to jump in.  Kind of different.

Guys prep

This was a Egyptian couple and the church had some interesting detail.  By the way, I was really thrown when people were chanting in the ceremony.  Everyone has their traditions and it's interesting to be an outside observer.  Just wish I had some audio to share with you to give you a sense of how it sounded.

Church Detail

Bride & Bridal Party

Since the priest was running a few minutes late, I was lucky enough to get a few minutes with the bride to shoot a couple images.  She was beaming on her special day and is as nice in person as she appears to be in pictures.

Bridal PartyCeremony

A couple shots of the bridal party and a quick capture of the bride and groom during the ceremony.

Just Married

This shot of Marian & Antwan just after they exited the church is one of my favorites.

Reception Details

First Dance

Finally, a few of the first dance as bride and groom and the dance with their parents.  Congrats guys!  This was the first time I worked with Mike and his crew, and they were such a nice bunch of guys.  Two were shooting video and we all had fun working this event.  I'd love to work with them again.