Nashville Health Care Council

The beautiful, Noah Liff Opera Center was the venue for this meeting of Health Care Professionals Friday evening.

Typically meetings like this can be mundane, and the lighting options very limited. This evening was an exception, and a lot of that had to do with the venue. These beautiful windows made it possible to blend some existing light that was coming in with my flash, that made for much nicer "mingling or networking" photos. I won't post those because I don't have releases on the individual subjects. It was a very y gray day, so I altered the color balance and did some post processing to make this look more interesting. Yes, I should have moved the car, but this wasn't a shoot for the Center so we went with what we had.

There were several dignitaries that are very involved in this organization and they have a passion for a healthier Nashville. Our Mayor, Karl Dean addressed the audience. He has taken many initiatives during his term to help make exercise more readily accessible to our city. You may notice the light is straight on, not from my camera position. I think this is much more flattering and gives some dimension to the shot, not a typical "speech at the podium" image. Although a little more trouble to set up, I prefer the end results.

As with any graduation ceremony of sorts, there is the group shot. Senator Frist was so easy to work with, he made it very easy to get what they wanted. I think this works out better because of planning. You can see the tape on the floor for position. I also asked for permission to reposition the banner prior to this portion, and that make it work much better.

There are the unsung heroes that make this appear to be a simple process, but lots of planning is necessary to make it appear that way. The group photo took about 5 minutes to shoot. The set up and planning? Much more time, but worth it. Making sure name tags are removed, and that you can see everyone is huge. Then making it look like the light was perfect that night for a photo, but it typically isn't. That's why you have to be over equipped and prepared. Here my Elinchrom Quadra supplied enough fill light bounced out of a 60" umbrella. I adjusted my shutter speed, allowing the available light behind them to record and provide separation.

Thanks to Paul Wharton for trusting me to shoot this important assignment for his client!