I photographed DEMO Fall 2011 in Santa Clara. I always love shooting DEMO. The technology launched there is always interesting to say the least. This year, I was able to shoot the conference with three Canon wireless file transmitters. Demonstrators have six minutes to launch their technology. It is out goal to have images online by the time they step off the stage. During previous DEMO conference, I would drop cards at the back of the auditorium, which meant I wouldn’t be able to shoot a lot of the demonstration. With the help of Mike Gurley of Canon and the guys at iTech Sherpa I was  able to transmit more than 9,000 images wirelessly. Also a big thanks to the guys at Evergreen Creative Here are a collection of image. Most of them are behind-the-scenes, which are  always my favorite as most people don’t get to see those photographs.

 

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I had about a half-hour to photograph the CFO of a local manufacturing company and transmit images. I also had to get a few shots of some of the activities going on at their small factory moments before the employees went to lunch. I would have liked to find a few other backgrounds to give my editors some choices, but one background was all time allowed.

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I was assigned to photograph a human resources manager for Corbis. The story was about the changes in health insurance brought about by the new healthcare registration, which has many human resources people keeping pretty busy. Not a terribly visual story to illustrate. An added caveat was that couldn’t have any photos adorning the walls in my photos (Corbis policy), which made it even more difficult. This was also to be the cover of a special section so it needed to have space for type. I really didn’t want to place the manager in front of a sign and shoot, so I looked for eye candy that would provide a somewhat interesting backdrop. Corbis’ headquarters is in an old bank building in downtown Seattle and there was a great big vault with a round door that I, as many other photographers before me, could not resist. I also shot some photos down a hallway with doors to smaller vaults and on a somewhat grand stairway as well as a shot overlooking the ground floor of the office. For most portraits I use a small speedlite set up which are quick to set up and move … and now to control. Oh yeah and there are no cables. . I was able to photograph the manager, who is a very nice person, with four different backgrounds. This was the first time I was able to use my new PocketWizard Zone Controller, which allows me to control three groups of speedlites manually from my camera. The new ZoneController works really well and is step up from the clunky TTL flash and Canon ST-E2 ratio controls, which only allowed me to control the output on two zones. It makes things much simple and than any of my previous speelite set ups. A few more shots after the break. Some worked better than others for various reasons. All of the images are full frame. Continue reading »

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News that Dino Rossi conceded to incumbent Senator Patty Murray came Thursday evening. Many of us covering the campaign thought we might not know until much later, because the race was supposed to have been much closer than it turned out to be. I’m sure many were having flashbacks to the contested governor’s race in 2004, which also featured Rossi.

I made it to Tutta Bella Pizzeria with a few minutes to spare before the senator made her entrance and made this picture which was on the New York Times home page a little later. It turned out to be a pretty nice photo. I like Patty Murray’s expression and body language. It was also nice that one of those television photographers thought to give me a little rim light so that Patty would stand out even more from the background. While I made images of the senator during her press conference, this one, I felt was stronger because it was different than the senator speaking into the microphone and I have more than a few of those in my archives. I felt really good about this image after some rather mundane election night photos.

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On Sunday, I photographed a newly remodeled Starbucks on Capitol Hill in Seattle that will serve beer and wine in the evening. It’s a great idea to try and boost business during what are under-utilized time for Starbucks stores. Because of east coast deadlines, I had a about half hour to photograph the ‘friends and family’ event and a half hour to edit and transmit pictures. I prefer to spend more time shooting and less time transmitting, but this was not to be one of those assignments as it appeared the wi-fi and cellular gods colluded and conspired against me. I arrived early set up my laptop and tested out Starbucks new wi-fi hotspot, which was pretty quick. I also had Verizon data connection and had four bars. After shooting for about a half hour (maybe a few minutes longer), I had a nice selection of images for my editors. I tried hard to show the the differences between this Starbucks and other Starbucks in a couple of frames. Here are a few of the images:When it  came time to transmit, I could not get transmit using Starbucks wi-fi network. My connection kept timing out and then my computer kept trying to connect to the old network, which for some reason was still up. While I like to use wi-fi hotpsots (I buy a cup of coffee and a pastry, so I’m not completely freeloading) and am grateful for them because they tend to be faster than my Verizon broadband connection, I have a back up that (usually) works. However, on this day my backup failed me … mostly. When it came time to transmit I had no bars. No bars. I think I was transmitting at 6KB/sec. After struggling for a few minutes, I found myself wandering around on Capitol Hill with a laptop in one hand tethered to my cell phone in the other hand, starting and stopping as bars would spike and my transmission rates would increase. It drew more than a few stares from drivers and passers by. I was able to get the photos transmitted, only a little after my deadline. After packing up, I decided to send one more photo (Deadline had passed, but I thought it was a photo they might be able to use online)  and sure enough, like clockwork, the Starbucks connection worked again and I looked at my cell phone signal strength and it was at full strength. Here are a few more pictures from the assignment. Some are redundant, but I like to give editors options.

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