Zoo Atlanta is perfect for any event from a small family barbecue to a formal gathering with 5000 guests!  It gives any event a unique ambiance, with the lush plants and the animals that live there. Imagine trainers with birds perched on their hands at your event. Or, your guests experiencing the simple thrills of feeding the animals. See photos below of the VIPs from the last networking event we covered there feed the lemurs. Just make sure that when you feed the lemurs you wear masks and gloves to protect them. Yes, you got that right, to protect the lemurs, not you.

Check out the photos below and see how your next event could benefit from this out of the ordinary space.

Many of the materials used were provided by sponsors:

The tent was by Tents Unlimited, and heaters by Peachtree Tents & Events. Shepard Exposition Services provided the tables, Graceful Tables the linens, and Floral Matters the flower decors. Max Lagers brought the beer, while Total Wine and Spirits brought the wine. The audio and video needs were filled by Onyx MS Group.

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Former Atlanta Mayor and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young talked about the historical significance of the Hyatt Regency Atlanta to the African-American Civil Rights Movement, as it was the venue of some of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s meetings in the 1960s. Ambassador Young also recognized the Ground Crew of the movement, the volunteers, and the workers who made it happen.

Christine King Farris, Dr. King’s sister, graced the event with many other prominent leaders in the African-American community.

Legendary basketball player Hank Aaron was also there with his wife, Billye Aaron, who was presented with the 2013 Crystal Customer Award by the Hyatt Regency Atlanta General Manager Joe Hindsley.

During the event, more than 50 Hyatt Regency Atlanta employees were also honored for their 30 years or more of service.

Take a look at the photos we took of the venue, elegant decor and guests, including that of Billye Aaron singing Happy Birthday to her husband who celebrated his birthday a few days before the event –

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The Ventanas sits on the 14th and 15th floor of the Park Pavilion building, within walking distance from the Georgia Aquarium, Centennial Olympic Park, World of Coca-Cola, CNN Center, Georgia World Congress Center, Philips Arena, Georgia Dome, American Cancer Society, and the Luckie Marietta District.

Its total indoor and outdoor area is 9,547 sq. ft, which gives event planners lots of room to plan just about any amazing event. Whether it be a small gathering of 50 or a 500-guest red carpet event with VIPs, it will surely be an impressive and unforgettable one when held at the Ventanas.

We just love it! Check out some of the photos of the place –

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The GA Aquarium is a favorite venue for corporate events because of its flexibility and space, not to mention the company of our graceful friends in the water.

For this event Corporate Events Unlimited handled the planning, while Bold American Events & Catering did the decor, which was a coral-inspired theme with vivid reds and blues.

Guests were serenaded by the Yacht Rock Schooner band.

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Okay, maybe there’s just a little bit of exaggeration there, but this was Karaoke on steroids. Imagine rocking to your favorite tunes with a live band playing with you in front of everyone. How’s that for Karaoke night?

It was the Metalsome band that rocked with the Karaoke participants during this event, with 2000 people in attendance.

Check out some of the photos we took and see the awesome job CCP Events did decorating the GA Aquarium.

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Though the characters of the film, Marty McFly and Doc Brown didn’t blast in with the DeLorean, the audience was more than excited to see this year’s guest presenter, Shaquille O’Neal. During the Q & A session, some of the basketball legend’s fans jumped on the stage with him to take pictures, and one even did a quick rap with Shaq!

When that was wrapped, the audience was wowed by the ice carving group Fear No Ice, who put on an amazing demonstration for everyone.  After that, the surprise musical presenter, Matchbox Twenty set everyone on fire with favorite hits from their albums.

This year, their annual company meeting had a little twist to it though – it was a circus! No, really it was. A carnival was setup for a whole evening, complete with acrobats, sword swallowers and people on stilts! The Imperial Opa Circus just took the event to a whole new level.  See for yourself –

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I digress.

A frequent theme for New Year’s resolutions that seems to come up quite a bit in my conversations with events industry professionals is time management: working less, working more efficiently, getting more things done, focusing, and the list goes on and on. The bottom line is: people in the event industry have a lot to do on a day-to-day basis, and are constantly looking to find ways to get more done and get back to LIVING! Well, I get it too – I am secretly working on cloning myself – moo-whah-hahhhh!!!!

One of the ways you can guard your time is to start doing business with other industry professionals who respect their own. When someone is doing ‘good business’ consistently it shows, whether it be by organizing themselves, replying to correspondence promptly, or updating their technology and systems to keep up with today’s tools.

This is where we come in. Our entire brand/business/identity is set up for people in the events industry with 1 million things to do and limited time. Sound familiar? So, instead of trying to create a photography studio that offers some sort of unique whizbang technology solution, or claims to be the best at a myriad of different services – we set ours up to be easy and efficient. Period.

We believe we are the best (after 20 years in the industry and multiple awards – I better be!!), but our focus is on being the most efficient. Our booking process is quick and easy (and all online!), and our contracts can be completely executed in an office or on the road while traveling. In fact, the average time our clients spend dealing with us and all of the details of the photography for their events is usually less than 30 minutes!

Stop and think about that for a second – and the experience you may be having with your current vendor(s). A total of 30 minutes of your time will cover all aspects of booking photography for your event or your client: initial contact, discovery conversation, contracting, invoicing, AND deliverables! No faxing. No printing. No email follow-ups. No jumping through hoops. Everything is smooth, efficient, online, and accessible from anywhere – because we designed it to be quick and easy.

Rarely do our clients have to call or email us to check up on things because we follow-up on the front end and we keep a tight schedule on the post-production. You get what you need from us before it occurs to you to follow up! Even in our peak of peak times, our image delivery might get stretched to four business days (normally three business days for every event we capture!) Can your photographer consistently maintain a three or four day delivery schedule? Based on what we have seen of our industry peers, we hear that window for other photographers approach two to three weeks on a very frequent basis. When you think about it, imagine the delivery delay and how it affects your personal time – that means a lot of back and forth emailing between you, your client and the photographer about the images, repackaging the images for your client, and not to mention all the waiting for replies. What if all that craziness went away?

Here’s another thing you may not know: “we” is actually a we – not just a “me” saying “we” to seem bigger and better than one person can be! Our business is not a one-man operation. We actually have a studio manager, a graphic designer, and an image production manager – that means things are getting done and emails are getting answered even when “the photographer” is traveling for a shoot or buried in shoots in peak season!

All in all, if you have read this entire piece, it is clear that saving time appeals to you. Let us help you with your next event and see how easy it can really be. Our rates may not be as cheap as your current provider, but I bet our team can consistently do it better! Not to mention this little ditty, what is YOUR time worth??

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WHAT!?

Clearly I have not been doing my job because decor photography is one of the core offerings of our business – probably 20% of what we do!!

We shoot the decor shots many of our event industry vendor friends use for awards and sales/marketing materials – we are frequently hired separately in addition to the primary photographer for the event!

We have custom packages set up just for our industry where our vendor friends can gain fully licensed images for their business at a fraction of the cost of hiring me on a retail basis.

Curious about what that looks like? See below. Curious about how it works – GIVE US A CALL!!!!!! [+1 678-457-4578]

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The “HD” stands for “Hospitality Design” and it’s basically a trade show for the designers of boutique properties in the hospitality world: hoteliers, general managers, interior design firms, architects, and everyone in between. There were seminars on everything from collaborating effectively on a large project to the design inspiration to the themes from famous designers and the famous spaces they created. I was able to see quite a few different design trends in the industry, and a whole lot of eye candy in the form of furniture and fixtures!

I came out from behind the curtain to share my experience with you because I really loved photographing this event…boutique design is my jam. If you put clean lines, crazy fabrics, textures, animal prints, and stark contrasting design elements from an eclectic mix of periods and influences — there I am!

My affinity for this type of design came to me quite honestly: my Uncle Jim is a fantastic interior designer. Throughout his life he purchased amazing historic homes and transformed them into modern design showpieces. The three most memorable properties of his that I remember were the home he and his wife built (complete with mirrored walls, black hardwood floors, an eight person marble hot tub in the master bath with the 5-foot chandelier over it), the bed-and-breakfast he created in the late 90′s (with an actual car–a Thunderbird–coming out of the wall above the kitchen sink and a larger than life size sarcophagus guarding the main staircase), and finally, an old filling station he renovated into a personal abode that was featured on HGTV! Not bad for a guy with no formal training living in L.A.! (That’s “Lower Alabama” not Los Angeles!!) He was a tremendous influence on my “eye” and so walking into the HD Boutique in South Beach was not just an exciting shoot for me, I was waxing nostalgic over fond memories of seeing the over-the-top designs in my younger years.

During the day we spent most of our time in the convention center at classes for new designers, existing designers, and for the vendors catering to the hospitality market. During the evening is when the fun really started…fabulous parties hosted at the most design-centric fabulous venues in Miami! We were treated to a wonderful event the first night at Lantao Social Club at the Surfcomber Hotel.

The second night was a CityScene sponsored party at the W. Hotel South Beach:

And the final night event (my personal favorite) was hosted at The Light Group’s FDR, acclaimed underground speakeasy style club situated in the basement of the famous design icon, the Delano.

Fabulous doesn’t even begin to describe the whole experience and Uncle Jim has already volunteered to assist me next year!

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We recently stumbled across a hilarious website called You Are Not A Photographer. They troll the internet (especially Facebook) for photos posted by folks who are charging money for their photography services, but lack some of the very basic skills (or basic gear…you know, like an SLR camera?) of the art!! These photos are re-posted (anonymously) for your amusement. So are we sharing this website just so that we can all point and laugh at the Fauxtographers? Not exactly. There is some truly legitimate advice, and lots of lessons to be learned from these photos. Pursuing your lifelong (or maybe week-long?) dream of making money from taking pictures is not a decision that should be taken lightly. It certainly shouldn’t be as easy as registering for an Official Fauxtographer’s Facebook Page. In fact, you should take all of the same considerations that you would take with any independent business. What product are you selling? What is it’s worth? Does your pricing accurately reflect your offering? Do you have any professional experience in this field? Is your business a worthy competitor for others in the same category? When starting up a business, it is a good idea to take a long, hard, critical look at yourself…because Chances Are You Suck.

(This is Patrick’s setup for his son’s first day of school. Kid you not. Pun intended.)

Photojournalist Kenneth Jarecke who indeed, does not suck, wrote this very insightful article about social media and the culture of praise that creates Fauxtographers. Although these budding businesspeople may have a lot of strengths, it is their inability to examine (and improve!) their weaknesses that will stop them from becoming Real Photographers. Jarecke makes an excellent point: “If nothing is bad, can anything be good?”

Now, after checking out You Are Not a Photographer, and hearing that Chances Are You Suck…you’re probably a little paranoid. Am I (or someone I know) a Fauxtographer!? Here’s a link to a few questions to ask yourself, and some advice on How Not to be a Fauxtog. Some other things to add on to that list:

• Educate yourself! Whether you take classes, read books, watch tutorials online, or ask good photographers great questions, you always have the opportunity to learn more about the craft of photography. And with technology improving and changing everyday, even the old school (shooting with film, developing in a darkroom) can learn from the new (culling techniques, digital post-production).
• Work! You are not above volunteering, assisting, or second-shooting. This puts you in a prime position to learn from folks who have been doing this for years. In fact, our own Patrick was recently a second for a shoot in London. It’s fun, it’s low stress, and a great way to get even better at what you do.
• Be Prepared! Know where you’re going, what you’re doing, what you’ll have available to you when you get there. Although you won’t always have a perfect photoshoot condition (in fact, it’s likely you won’t) you need to be able to handle yourself. You may have seen the recent scandal over some poorly posed and lit Olympics pictures. Now, the photographer claims that it wasn’t an ideal situation– but as a professional, you need to be prepared for that.
• Listen! Though praise and admiration will make you feel great, some good ole fashioned critiquing can make you BE great. There are undoubtedly people in your life willing to tell you the cold, hard truth about your work and what you can do to improve it. In fact, the PWP crew is known to be brutally honest with each other…we can be brutally honest with you, too!
• Practice! You need to be consistent. If someone hires you based on a portfolio of images you’ve shown them, you need to be absolutely sure that’s what you can deliver. If you are poor at posing people, get a friend and help them get comfortable in front of the camera. If you aren’t so great at extreme lighting situations, visit a dark museum or a bright garden and mess around with your settings. And if you’ve never taken pictures at a live event before, well…get out there and do it! Don’t wait until you have a check in hand before you realize you’re in over your head.

(This is what Patrick brings as carry-on on the plane when flying to an on-location shoot. We won’t talk about the 2-3 other suitcases he checks.)

If you, or someone you know, might be in danger of being a Fauxtographer, please share this blog post on Facebook, Twitter, or your social network of choice.

In all seriousness, everyone with the interest and the passion has the ability to become a good photographer. It’s a lifelong learning process, and we’re grateful to those that shared their knowledge with us, and proud to pass it on.

Need more advice? Check out our article on How to Choose a Wedding Photographer. Want more snarky photography industry humor? Why We Don’t Do Weddings.

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