Just finished up a pretty interesting black tie event shoot, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. This was kid of a double header for us, as our job was to photograph the guys from OrangeLine, as they played the benefit, and then photographically document the benefit for the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Black tie events are always nice. You get all dressed up, and look your best. You walk around with your chin up, really feeling like you’re someone. Then it hits you! You realize that your working the gig. Two hours later, you’re absolutely miserable. Everyone around you is getting drunk at the open bar, while you running around with your head cut off, slow cooking in your suit, which feels like an oven at 350 degrees. But wait, it gets worse. Every time you go to take a shot (which is happening about every 30 seconds at this point), your camera strap is getting caught up in your jacket, and your tie keeps ending up in front of your front lens element.

So what do you do? You focus on those first two hours, when you really felt like you were hot stuff, wait for everyone to get drunk and really start capturing some priceless moments, and just get the job done!

Our friends from the band OrangeLine, hooked us up with a great shoot, of a benefit they were playing. It took place at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington, DC. The gallery is truly an amazing place, with all of the old architecture and such.

This had to be, one of our most challenging shoots to date, as far as lighting was concerned. The inside of the gallery is quite large, only being lit by large pot lamps, shooting straight up the columns. Needless to say, it was pretty dark and had 50 foot ceilings, with nowhere to really bounce our flash off of. What do you do in a situation like this, you ask? Improvise! It starts with really cranking your ISO up, and opening up your aperture. We would bounce light off whatever would could find, whether it be a white concrete column, or the white shirt of some guy, that had removed his black coat and tie. Needless to say, it all worked out in the end. We were able really capture the mood and ambiance of the gallery, due to the lack of light.