Hosts and guests at the morning show at 94.7 Fresh FM in Washington, DC
Entercom Radio – Washington, DC
Since we are in the holiday season, I looked back over the blog and found that I did not post about the 2017 Radio Santa visit to downtown DC! Although this station has changed their name and personnel, they partnered with Tysons Corner Center for so many of their events over the years. Jen, Kelly and Tommy have familiar voices on the radio as well as in person at the mall. Because of the association, the Santa from Tysons took a trip down to their DC studios to make an appearance. He took calls, played games, and posed for lots of photos. I wish all the people from 94.7 well, and I hope to continue to see them at events soon!
Santa taking calls from radio listeners at 94.7 Fresh FM in Washington, DCTurkish Coffee Lady bringing breakfast drinks for the show at 94.7 Fresh FM in DC2017 Radio Santa visit to 94.7 Fresh FM in Washington, DCGizem White, Kelly Collis, and Tommy McFly on the morning show at 94.7 Fresh FM94.7 Fresh FM Morning show signing off from their DC studios Santa giving hugs around the Entercom Radio offices in Washington, DCJen, Kelly, and Tommy greeting Santa on their set at 94.7 Fresh FM in Washington, DC
Santa and Jen waving at the Lord and Taylor holiday fashion Show – Tysons Corner Center
We are coming up on the holidays! With Tysons Corner Center being one of my biggest clients, I am capturing many of the events that happen around this busy shopping season. Lord and Taylor sponsored a holiday fashion show in their beautiful Concourse area just inside from their outdoor Plaza. Along with some personalities from 94.7 Fresh FM, it was a full production! Who wouldn’t want to see the latest fashions on some popular media personalities around the holidays?
Models on the Runway
Runway model at the Tysons Corner Center Lord and Taylor holiday fashion show Walking the Runway at the Tysons Corner Center Lord and Taylor holiday fashion show
An appropriate long red carpet was rolled out to be the runway for the models to have an easy marker for their walks. The stylists from Lord and Taylor outfitted the models with some of the newest fashions for men, women, and kids.
Runway model at the Tysons Corner Center Lord and Taylor fashion show Female model at the Tysons Corner Center Lord and Taylor fashion show Walking the runway at the Tysons Corner Center Lord and Taylor fashion show Runway model at the Tysons Corner Center Lord and Taylor fashion show Runway model at the Tysons Corner Center Lord and Taylor fashion show
For the photography setup, I wanted to make sure that both the model and clothes really popped off the screen so I needed to bring out some extra gear. In other words, I setup one large strobing flash at the end of the runway. I positioned myself at the end of the red carpet. That would give me a view of the entire runway to see the models walking and some of the crowd on the edges. Notice how the background falls into a nice blur as they walk closer. Sitting on the ground gives them a more heroic and powerful look. Confidence is always a more flattering look!
Special Guests
Miss Maryland at the Tysons Corner Center Lord and Taylor holiday fashion show
Santa and Jen Richer at the Tysons Corner Center Lord and Taylor holiday fashion show
The show ended with appearances by some VIPs including Miss Maryland, everyone’s favorite, Santa! He joined Jen Richer as the final runway walker to a lot of fanfare and cheers from the crowd. I was happy with the resulting images. The look from the strobes really helps to bring out the true colors of the clothing. Hopefully the images help convince people to head out to Tysons Corner Center and Lord and Taylor to do some shopping this season!
The holiday rush for shopping is almost here, so camera manufacturers are getting into the fray with lots of new products. I am happy with my current setup for most events, but there has been some occasion where having more options for triggering multiples flashes would have come in handy. Working with some other photographers on their projects started me thinking on how I can accomplish this with my existing equipment. They have their own systems, but since I have different gear, I needed to do some thinking.
The monolights I use in my event photography are Elinchrom Style RX 600s which are triggered by the Elinchrom Skyport remote. These fit into the hot shoe connection on your camera. I wanted to have the ability to trigger a speedlight at the same time that the monolight is fired. Althought I could set the speedlight go off the optical slave, it will fire anytime that another flash is fired. In most events now, many have a camera. That would burn the batteries too quickly if this happens. Also it would probably ruin everyone else’s photos that will trigger my flash. Here is my slick solution, that I will try at the next opportunity:
Directly connected to the camera is a PocketWizard MiniTT1 for Nikon. Also connected to the hotshoe connection on top of the MiniTT1 is the Elinchrom Skyport. The MiniTT1 is designed to send a radio signal to an off camera flash that is connected to a FlexTT5, and pass the shutter signal through it’s hot shoe on top. Usually another speedlight is connected on that top hot shoe, but I connected the Elichrom Skyport and experimented to see if both flashes would fire. Here are the results:
The Skyport will also get the signal leaving the TT1 on the camera on! I had the Speedlight on a different channel just to see if it would pass the signal while not making a connection to another unit. When I had the MiniTT1 off, it did not pass the signal to the Skyport. So I tried it with both of them on:
Success! I tried this on all available channels, and everything seemed to work. It was just in my basement, so I don’t know the range of this setup, or how it will work over a long shoot, but the early tests show promise. Once I try this in a more demanding application, I’ll post the results here. Let me know if you have tried something similar, and if you have run into any trouble with this setup.
