My first “Business Trip”

Sean Tuohy speaks at the Burger King National Franchisee Summit in DC

Last week I had a first.  The first time someone hired me as a photographer and flew me to their location to stay for two days to shoot for them.  I had always envisioned a day where I would be able to travel as a photographer.  I love to travel and I love to take pictures, so a melding of the two was a reasonable expectation at some point.  A while ago I photographed Alex Salguiero, a local entrepreneur who owns multiple Burger Kings in the Savannah area.  After the shoot Alex was extremely complimentary and gave my information to the National Franchisee Association who handles the Burger King franchise Summit in DC every year.  They needed a photographer, and relying solely on Alex’s referral and what they saw on my website and blog, they hired me as the official photographer for the two-day summit on Capitol Hill.  It was going to be a challenge to say the least.  I had never been involved in a project of this scale.  There were a lot of things to work out, like an extensive face-paced schedule, travel, budget, contracts, etc.  I was learning as I went.  If you know me in anyway and have been following my work at all you know that I don’t shoot a lot of events.  I try to stay away from them if I can.  It’s not that I don’t like them, well… yeah, actually it is.  Most of them.  There are some that I enjoy, they are just few and far between.  This event, though demanding would prove to be very interesting and in addition to shooting A LOT, I learned a lot and met some really great people.  I even got to go behind the velvet rope in our nation’s capitol and photograph Burger King franchisees meeting and greeting with some of our Country’s leaders including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from Kentucky.  The above photo is Sean Tuohy of “The Blind Side” fame.  He is the real life Dad played by Tim McGraw in the movie.  He was the final guest speaker of the event and made for a throughly enjoyable evening.  Photographically speaking most of the event was a nightmare.  Dimly lit rooms filled with moving people interacting with each other.  I had anticipated only needing one body for the event and having one a as a backup. However that changed pretty quickly after I realized exactly what I would be dealing with.  I had my D700 with 70-200 f/2.8 attached in order to capture images like the one you see above and then I had a D5000 with a 24-70 attached to go wider.  I also used an SB900 at the parties and trade show for group shots.  For shooting in the main conference area I was at ISO 1600 and beyond 100% of the time.  When we were on the Hill and in some of the other areas in the Hyatt I was able to knock that down to ISO 800, sometimes.  Overall I shot about 2,000 photos and delivered them in their entirety to my client, as per the contract.  I also edited a selection of photos that I thought worked well as a chronological photo log of the event.  I am already in talks to shoot another one of these franchise events out west.  I have to be honest, shooting one of these every couple of months would be a nice gig in addition to all of my steady work.