Over the past few years, as I move away from wedding photography, I have looked to expand my areas of expertise as a photographer to include corporate event and gala photography. Shooting these types of events is a natural extension of having spent twenty years shooting weddings. The skills are the same, but, mercifully, the stress level is about five times lower. All the same, the event planners who put these together do an absolutely spectacular job and show an exquisite level of attention to detail and it’s my job to capture them. The locations of these generally do not suck either. I have recently shot charity galas at The Montage Resort in Laguna Beach, the Park Hyatt Aviara in Carlsbad, the Balboa Bay Resort in Newport Beach, and the Dana Point Waldorf Astoria Beach Resort (although they did manage to lose my keys at the valet for about 45 minutes, which isn’t fun when you’re ready to go home and pour a stiff drink!) and corporate events for clients including ATRI at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, The Burnham-Moores Center at USD, Scripps Encinitas, Whiting Turner construction and Trustmark Insurance. At the corporate events, there’s a trend to offer corporate headshots to all the employees in attendance. SUCH a smart idea, I think. They’re already there, they’re dressed up and it takes just minutes to run them through a quick shoot. Have a look at some of my favorite images from my recent work photographing corporate events and galas!
