2015 PIIN Celebration Banquet

The 2015 Celebration Banquet for the Pennsylvania Interfaith Impact Network (PIIN) was held Sunday, May 3, at the Westin Convention Center Hotel.  This is my third year photographing the event.  PIIN is an alliance of religious groups, organized labor, and others engaged in social activism.  When you watch the local news, and you see clergy being arrested outside UPMC during a protest, or protests for a living wage, you're seeing PIIN in action.

Photos from the event can be found HERE.

Olivia's Bat Mitzvah

Olivia's Bat Mitzvah was my second one for 2015, and was also at my "home base" of Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill.  One of the hardest things to photograph during the service is to get people actually looking up, instead of looking down at what they are reading.  Olivia made it easy for me.  She would notice me at the back of the sanctuary, and she made it a point to look at the camera and smile, making for the perfect "Kodak Moment".

We lucked out in that this was the nicest weekend of the year to that point.  Plenty of sunshine, and a high temperature in the low 70s.  Because I can do formal and family photos quickly when I have to, we had enough time after the photos in the sanctuary to head to the rose garden behind Temple Sinai to shoot some great stuff.  There weren't any roses yet, but the sunshine, combined with the dark walls in the background, made for some wonderful shots.

Olivia didn't want your typical Bat Mitzvah party, so instead of the usual locations, her family rented out the BRGR restaurant in East Liberty.  The kids were upstairs on the top balcony, while the adults were underneath in the main restaurant area.  Entertainment was provided by Vincient the Magician, who provided amazing performances that wowed both the adults and the kids.

Mara's Bat Mitzvah

I had photographed Mara's older sister's Bat Mitzvah a couple of years ago, so I was excited when her family contacted me for Mara's.  The ceremony was at Temple Sinai in Squirrel Hill, and the party was at the Longue Vue Country Club in Verona.  Mara's theme for her party was "Masquerade", so all of the kids had decorative masks to wear.  DJ Vanessa had plenty of music, balloons, and games to keep the party going.

Photos from Mara's big day can be found HERE.

Easter Portraits at the Playground

Late last year I did a series of "Photos at the Playground" sessions over at the Swisshelm Park Playground, where parents could bring their kids for photos in a relaxed, kid-friendly environment. There was a small shooting fee, and parents can then order prints and enlargements online. We were able to have three session in the late fall before it finally got too cold and nasty

After laying low for the winter, I was looking forward to bring the concept back this spring.  Easter Sunday seemed like a perfect fit, even though it came early this year.  Unfortunately, in early April there aren't a lot of flowers in bloom, and the grass is more brown than green.  I needed to come up with something that would say "Spring".  I had a colorful blanket to start with, which would also help if the ground was wet.  A quick trip to local stores produced some nice bright flower decorations and some oversized eggs which added color to the scene and made great props.  Perfect!

Savi

So, it is still February, and the weather, in a word, STINKS! there's too much cold (and the kids have been home from school too much), and too much snow. Not the best conditions to be outside doing portraits, to say the least! So, (sometimes) crazy person that I am, that's exactly what I did! I've recently purchased a new camera (a Nikon D800E, for those of you who care about such things), and my cats were getting tired of me sticking a lens in their faces to try the camera out. I wanted to use the camera for portrait session, so I could get a better feel for the camera in a working situation. Savi was one of the kids I photographed last fall during my "Pictures at the Playground" sessions. She's a natural in front of the camera, and I was waiting for an opportunity to photograph her again. Savi loves to go sledding, so we headed out to one of the better sledding hills in the area, known to the locals as Blue Slide Park (Officially it is the Frick Park Parklet on Beechwood Blvd.). One other thing I was able to test was wirelessly transmitting the files to my iPad Mini so they could be previewed on a larger screen. I'm using an Eye-Fi card in my D800E to accomplish this, and I'm pleased to say that it worked like a champ. Savi's mom was able to preview the images almost as quickly as I shot them, without having to look over my shoulder. As an added benefit, after we were finished shooting, Savi was able to review all her photos on the iPad while we warmed up with hot chocolate at the nearby Dunkin' Donuts.

Cupids Undie Run

Pittsburghers will do some CRAZY stuff when it is for a good cause!  This past Saturday I helped photograph the "Cupid's Undie Run" for fellow photographer Wendy Hacker and Clicks for a Cause.

The event was hosted by the Buckhead Saloon at Station Square.   Many of the runners showed up an hour prior to the run, to make sure they consumed enough, ahem, "antifreeze" prior to going outside.  The run itself didn't go very far, basically through Station Square, across the Smithfield Street Bridge, then crossing Smithfield Street and returning over the bridge.

The runners were actually VERY lucky, because weather conditions weren't too bad during the race itself.  The snow from earlier in the day had stopped, and winds were minimal (Other than when they crossed the Mon on the Smithfield Street Bridge!).  The snow and high winds (as shown in the photo) didn't start until 5 minutes after the last runner had finished and everybody was back inside Buckhead's.

The Eye-Fi Card (Part 1)

Eye-Fi cards are a neat technology that's been around for several years now.  An Eye-Fi card is an SD (Secure Digital) memory card (typically found in most non-professional digital cameras) that has both memory for storing the image files as well as a wi-fi chip that allows the files to be automatically sent to either one of the internet photo-sharing sites or transmitted to your laptop or tablet/smartphone.

My recent upgrade to the Nikon D800E camera opened the possibility of my using an Eye-Fi card.  The D800E is my first camera that includes two memory card slots.  One is a standard Compact Flash card (the standard memory card for most professional photographers) and one SD slot.  With this kind of configuration, many photographers will use a CF card for their primary photo storage, and use an Eye-Fi card in the SD slot to transmit the files.

For the kinds of things I do, there are several ways I envision using this technology:

1)  Currently I set up my laptop at a wedding reception.  Periodically I will copy photos of the wedding  from my memory cards onto the laptop (which means the files are backed up).  I'll then run a slide show so guests can see the photos from earlier in the day.  Besides providing a service to the client, it is also effective advertising for me.  With an Eye-Fi card, I can set it up so the files are automatically transmitted from the camera to the laptop, and automatically added to the slideshow.  Guests will be able to see the photos almost as quickly as I shoot them, and I don't need to spend time at the laptop loading the photos.

2)  I sometimes get asked to photograph events where they want printing done during the event.  The Eye-Fi card can send files to my laptop, where the clients can preview them prior to sending them to the printer.

3)  When I'm on location, shooting a portrait session or a modeling session, I can have the Eye-Fi card send the files to my iPad, so the client can get a preview of the photos prior to my posting them online.

With the D800E, the first thing I had to consider was the size of the files.  When shooting at the full 36MP resolution of the camera, each image file is approximately 50 MB.  A wifi connection isn't fast enough to send that file quickly.  What other D800 users do is shoot "RAW + JPG" (which creates two files), with the JPEG file size set to "Small" (about 9MP).  The RAW files are saved to the CF card for future use, while the JPG is saved to the Eye-Fi card for transmission.  The small JPG files transfer quickly.  It is interesting to note that what is considered "Small" on the D800E has a resolution of 3600x2400 pixels, which is larger than what I got from my original D70 dSLR (3000x2000 pixels), and is more than enough for printing up to 8x10 prints.

In Part 2, I'll discuss setting up the Eye-Fi card and how well it meets my needs.