There was dinner, dancing, and big names at this event. Sounds almost like a star studded Hollywood event doesn’t it? This was all possible by the amazing work of San Francisco La Raza Lawyer’s Association (SFLRLA) President-elect Xochitl Carrion and the current board’s organizational and production skills! Held yearly at the InterContinental Hotel on 888 Howard Street in San Francisco, Noche de Gala is an awards & recognition dinner and dancing event that honors achievements in the Hispanic legal community. Last year was our first year as their official event photographer and for this year, and thanks to President Xochitl Carrion, we were invited back again to photograph this year’s event which also happens to be their 40th Anniversary! The keynote speech was delivered by newly appointed San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon. The invited guest speaker was U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, but unfortunately was not able to attend, but she did prepare a recorded video for those in attendance. This year’s Latino Lawyer Honorees were Professor Tino Cuellar and Victor Marquez. Other major names in attendance were San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris, San Francisco Board of Supervisor President David Chiu, San Francisco Board of Supervisor Scott Wiener, San Francisco Board of Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, San Francisco Board of Supervisor David Campos as well as a number of Superior Court Judges.
Here are some teaser pics from the 2011 Noche de Gala event at the InterContinental Hotel:
.jpg "40th Anniversary San Francisco Noche de Gala event at InterContinental Hotel")
.jpg "40th Anniversary San Francisco Noche de Gala event at InterContinental Hotel")
.jpg "40th Anniversary San Francisco Noche de Gala event at InterContinental Hotel")
All the rest of the photos can be viewed in our Noche de Gala gallery here. A special thanks to Eric Lee for the valuable assistance as my second photographer.
Camera(s) used: Canon EOS 1D Mark II, Canon EOS 5D, Nikon D3
Lenses used: Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8L USM, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED, Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G VR ED-IF
Lighting used: Canon 580EX II, Nikon SB-900, Nikon SB-800
Posted in 06. Event PhotographyTags: Canon 580EX II, Canon EF 28-70mm f/2.8L USM, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM, Canon EOS 1D Mark II, Canon EOS 5D, Cruz Reynoso, David Campos, David Chiu, Dennis Herrera, George Gascon, InternContinental Hotel, Kamala D. Harris, Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED, Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR, Nikon D3, Nikon SB-800, Nikon SB-900, Noche de Gala, Ross Mirkarimi, San Francisco, Scott Wiener
Being a Strobist-style wedding photographer, I use a lot of flashes. Nighttime, daytime, direct sunlight, I’m rarely without at least one or three Speedlights and I need them to recycle fast, especially when shooting the dance floor during the wedding reception. Nothing more annoying than waiting for the flash to recycle and missing key moments. And on the other hand, you’re firing away and when things are starting to get good, you’re flash runs out of battery. So how do we fix this?
Easy, meet my little friends: Sanyo Eneloop NiMH batteries. They are the best thing since slice bread. They’re inexpensive, hold a charge very well, and recharge in like one (Canon 580EX II and Nikon SB-900) to two (Canon 550EX and Nikon SB-800) seconds from a full power discharge. A set of four with charger can be had for $18.95 from B&H Photo Video and an 8-pack for $19.99, but the best prices I’ve seen are at Costco whenever you can find them.
I would recommend using Ni-MH batteries over Lithium Ion (Li-ion) for flashes, as Ni-MH does a better job of handling full-power discharges and is quicker on recycle time. I should note that I tend not to fire full-power flash blasts, but rather try to shoot for 1/4th power for faster recycle and less battery drain. At 1/4th power on the flash, I can shoot an entire wedding before needing to recharge the Eneloop, but YMMV depending on your shooting style.
Over President’s Weekend, Eric Lee, Rendy Lai, Jinggoy Montenejo, and I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the 2011 Animation on Display (AOD) cosplay convention for the second time in a row (you can see last year’s report here and photos here) and we had a blast. Animation on Display is an annually held two-day cosplay/anime convention in San Francisco with attendance steadily growing every year. Traditionally held before WonderCon, Cherry Blossom Festival, and Fanime, AOD is the first major San Francisco Bay Area cosplay & anime convention for the year and is actually the first for us in a long time as we didn’t do many anime conventions last year because of weddings. This year’s honored guest include Robet Clotworthy (voice of Jim Raynor in StarCraft and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty), James Harper (voice of Emperor Arcturus Mengsk in StarCraft, StarCraft: Brood War, and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty), Niel Kaplan (voice of Tychus Findlay in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty), Ian McConville & Matthew Boyd, Kevin McKeever, Ken Pontac, Christina Vee, and Tommy Yune. There were also a number of panel discussion & performance events such as Making StarCraft 2, Adobe Lightroom for Cosplayer and Cosplay Photographers (presented by Fox Berry and Neo Evans), Choosing Fabric for Cosplay (presented by Bekalou), Advanced Cosplay Photography (presented by Oscar Cwajbaum), Yukie Dong’s Anime Music Live Show!, Masquerade, Swap Meet, and much more. Also this year, they had a dedicated free photo staging area in the Dealer’s hall complete with a muslin and modeling lights to get in some professional looking shots!
Last year for Animation on Display, we scheduled a number of private cosplay photo shoots and for this year, we did something a bit different in that we didn’t schedule any photo shoots, but rather just walked around. We did manage to get in a couple of group photo shoots.
Some general con-coverage shots (all shot with Nikon D3 with Nikon PC-E 85mm f/2.8D, ambient lighting):
Photobombed Ran into the ever amazing Rachael Masako Ing, cosplaying, with none other than Sharon Peng, aka Heulangel, (whom I’ve been Facebook buddies with for like ever but never had the opportunity to meet in person):
Did this group shoot from the anime series Ouran High School Host Club with Erskine Noel:
Then did another group photo shoot with Sharon Peng’s group:
Did a shoot with Anna and her group:
And finished off with Naxul and Reiko doing a photo shoot from the anime series Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt. For this shoot, I had the chance to play with Jinggoy’s Lumodi beauty dish, which was pretty cool. Also these pics show that you can turn a boring hotel wall into something more interesting with a few speedlights.
Lumodi Beauty Dish Initial Thoughts
My first impression of the Lumodi beauty dish was it felt cheap because it was constructed of mainly plastic, but it didn’t take long to realize it was made lightweight on purpose so that it wouldn’t weigh down the head of the Speedlight. This simplifies the design versus the DIY beauty dish that need some sort of mounting bracket meaning one less item to lose. The biggest question is light quality and how well does it work. It works great. Photos 2-6 from the Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt photo shoot were taken using the Lumodi and you can see how it gives a nice punch of evenly spread light. For the individual portrait shots, I had Jinggoy hold the Lumodi just right out of frame to really get that nice soft lighting you see.
As you can see from below, with a couple/few Speedlights and a colored gel, you can turn something boring into something exciting.
Photo by Eric Lee.
You can also view all the photos in our 2011 Animation on Display gallery here. If you are a cosplayer or cosplay photographer, please be sure to visit our other site: CosplayPhotographers.com and also like our Cosplay Photographers Facebook page for continual updates! Also a special thank you for Dominic Nguyen for having us back each year!
Camera(s) used: Nikon D3
Lens(es) Used: Nikon PC-E 85mm f/2.8D and Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
Lighting: Nikon SB-900, Nikon SU-800, Nikon SU-800, Lumodi beauty dish, and Honl 1/4″ grid
Posted in 06. Event Photography, ReviewsTags: Animation on Display, anime, Becca Louise, Bekalou, cosplay, cosplay photographer, cosplay photography, cosplay photoshoot, Eric Lee, Fox Berry, Hotel Kabuki, Jinggoy Montenejo, Lumodi beauty dish, Nikon D3, Nikon SB-800, Nikon SB-900, off-camera lighting, Oscar Cwajbaum, OscarC, Rendy Lai, Strobist
Recently I had the opportunity to photograph the 2011 Southwest Airlines Chinese New Year Parade with some good friends: Rendy Lai and Jinggoy Montenejo. The Southwest Airlines Chinese New Year parade is held annually in San Francisco, rain or shine, and is considered the largest Chinese New Year parade outside of China.The parade starts at Market and 2nd Street and makes it way to the end at Kearny and Washington. We lucked out this year with the weather, as it had been raining earlier in the day, but stopped by the 6 PM parade start time. And because it had rained earlier, the streets were all wet, which while may not be desirable for many people, it’s great for photographing at night time because the wet ground actually gives us the little extra bit of light so we can wrangle out a little faster shutter speed. Ever notice in movies why scenes filmed at night always have wet streets? That’s why.
It has been 2-years since I last photographed the Chinese New Year parade (see 2009′s photos here) and it sure brought back lots of good memories! Here are some pictures with all the rest in our 2011 Chinese New Year parade gallery here:
So this was my first photo shoot with the Nikon AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED super wide angle lens. I’m generally not a huge fan of super wide lenses because of how close you have to get to your subject to fill the frame and the extreme distortions, but event photography generally benefits from using such a lens, so I figured what better event to try it at than the San Francisco Chinese New Year parade. Some of the biggest issues I had with the Nikon 14-24mm is what I expected, I couldn’t get close enough to some of my subjects. The Shaolin Temple USA had some amazing Kung Fu sword demonstrations that I wanted to capture in action and fill the frame. Unfortunately I couldn’t get close enough to them without getting decapitated or freak them out. But one of the coolest feature with using a super wide like the 14-24mm is that you can capture the surroundings to give the viewers a sense of place. Had I shot many of these shots with the 70-200mm telephoto, you don’t get the same feel of San Francisco as with the 14-24. I also opted to shoot low and point the lens upwards, generally not a good idea as distortion becomes extremely pronounced, but it worked in this case. Focus is fast and accurate, as you would expect from an AF-S lens.
Personally if I had to do it again, I would opt for the 17-35mm f/2.8, 16-35mm f/4, or 24-70mm f/2.8 mainly for the above listed reasons. Another fear of using this lens for event photography is that there is no way to protect the bulbous front element from damage. I also decided against using flash because I wanted to maintain the feel of a night-time parade. I also wanted to keep my shutter fast, 1/100, to avoid motion blur as the people are moving which resulted in shooting at ISO 6400.
Camera(s) used: Nikon D3
Lens(es) Used: Nikon AF-S 14-24mm f/2.8G ED and Nikon AF 85mm f/1.4
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