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Posts tagged as “Party”

Secret Lounge Party – 03/06/2009

My friend Jermaine asked me to photograph a party he had coming up at Secret last Friday. I’d never heard of the place before, but, knowing Jermaine, I knew that the party was probably going to be worth shooting. Here’s the beginning of the set. I have some thoughts about the shoot after.

If you’re coming here because I met you at the party and gave you my URL, welcome! I hope you like the photos.

Here are the rest of them: After Dark at Secret 03/06/2009 GalleryNote that there are some potentially non-work-safe photos toward the end of the set, so you have been warned.

So, it feels like my camera has a warm up time. I’m not talking about the typical 50 or so frames it takes me to warm up when shooting situations like this, but that the camera itself seems like it needs to be broken in a little bit each time, like stretching before exercise (not that I know anything about that). It’s weird, and I might just be imagining things, but it really feels like there’s a period at the beginning of a shoot, especially under difficult conditions, when the camera just doesn’t respond like it’s supposed to. It’s extra strange that I don’t have the camera set to use any automatic settings; everything is manual. You would think that with everything in manual the response time would not be an issue, but it was. In the long run, it doesn’t matter. It’s just an idiosyncrasy I’ve noticed over the last few shoots.

Another challenge for this shoot was photographing black people in the dark. It basically meant that my metering was not useful. Once I had set a good exposure for inside though, I just went with that for everything since most of the light was coming from my flash anyway. Even worse was that the ceiling in the club was black, so no bounce flash for me.

Furthermore, I keep getting weird skin tones with the camera set to a high ISO (1600+) while using the flash with the orange diffuser. I experienced this with the Metric System party and I see it again here. It’s reflecting REAL hard off some lower layers of skin or something and make people look really yellow. Fortunately, setting the highlight recovery to a modest 20 in Lightroom completely removes the harsh yellow cast and allows normal skin tones. You know, thinking about it, I had the same issue when shooting How To Disappear Completely for the photos shot under the stage lights. Maybe something is happening with colored lights and skin at high ISOs? I mean, there’s no maybe about it—there is definitely something happening. I just don’t know what it is. At least it’s easy to fix.

Overall, I feel this was a very successful shoot for me. It was wildly different than anything I’ve shot before and a lot of fun. I hope that I can come back and shoot this again and that these things open some doors for me because I would love to shoot more events like this, especially when I’m given sort of free reign to shoot how I like to shoot as I was this time. The one thing I learned was that I need business cards. And probably to set up josephdillingham.com as a more professional counterpart to the wild bastion of heathenish debauchery and immorality I have set up here.

The Metric System – Naïveté party photos

The ultimate yield from the party photos I took was something like 441 usable photos. In the selection process I basically only rejected photos that had some major technical defect (soft focus, bad exposure, horrible). Usually I only pick and process photos I like, which would have probably cut this set in half or even a third, but since these pictures are for The Metric System to use as press I went ahead a left in a bunch of technically fine, artistically lacking photos.

Because there are so many, I’m only putting the first 35 into this post. A link to the whole set follows. I encourage you to check it out since the real party pictures don’t start until well into the triple digits.

The Metric System – Naïveté @ Flickr

Metric System party tonight, Dec 12th!

Everyone, Metric System party is tonight from 8-10pm. If you live in New York and are not infirm, I expect to see you there. Here’s the invite with the location.

Metric System Medium Invite
Metric System Invite

If you want to be slick and come by for the VIP hour, the party starts at 7, with a silent auction, exclusive performance, and a bunch of other really great stuff for a suggested donation of only 20 US dollars.

Come by! Support the arts!

The Metric System Party – Dec 12th

Dearest readers and RSS addicts,

On December 12th the Metric System will be hosting its premiere party, announcing itself to the world. The Metric System is a group of folks in and around the New York City area who have created a support network for like-minded creative types to facilitate the realization of projects and performances and whatever else strikes their fancy.

Don’t take my word for it, though. Check the site—The Metric System.

This is the invite that is floating around for the party.

Metric System Medium Invite
Metric System Invite

Come by. I’ll be there acting as official party photographer. And, if my soothing presence isn’t enough lure for you to show up, there will be art and music and sushi and sake and beer and all sorts of great crap that you just can’t turn down. Besides, it’s from 8-10 on a Friday which makes it the perfect time to come out and pregame for what will probably turn into a massive Friday night. Besides, art and music! Who doesn’t love art and music? For free?

If you read this, I expect to see you there.