If you're interested in attending...

10 FREE TICKETS to the Washington Bridal Showcase at the Dulles Expo Center. If you are interested in attending e-mail me at info@keithphotography.com for a free ticket, a $10 value

Washington Bridal Showcase - the prep

On Sunday, Feb 1 I'm participating in the Washington Bridal Showcase. A flurry of wedding professionals will take the cavernous Dulles Expocenter and turn it into a mall for brides. Now you gotta have an imagination to transform a cavern a mall that will not trun off the customer but we do it. 

For the first time I will be taking a double booth at the event with a florist and a wedding planner ifrom n a small marketing group I belong to, Event Realities. #373, two aisles from the fashion show area and on the end of a row. Preparation is well under way with brochures, flyers, banners and a video. I will create the flyers and brochures myself, just basic updates to previous versions. The banner and video will be outsourced, the banner to an online company (less cost) and the video to Alan Heath, a veteran, award winning photojopurnalist from the UK and a long time associate.

Convention Center A

Batting average: 2009 Three Inaugural Balls; Lifetime Average: 7 Inaugural Balls, 4 Inaugurations What do I know about Inaugural Balls? The training session says no high heels for the women working as assistants. Not for me says Rachel, my trusty assistant/intern from last summer. It is HEELS--two days later “hey! my feet are fine, my calves a little less so but I think I'm almost fully recovered from those two nights of insanity.” Doesn’t apply to me says Kara, my office wife. Picture this, it is 1 am the day after the inauguration and Kara is sitting in real pain. She can barley change into her tennie pumps. “Never again will I wear heels to a ball.”

OK ‘nuff about feet, what about the ball #7 . The Mid Atlantic States ball was one of the official balls held in the DC convention center. To me, it was like the ball for the second Bush 2 inauguration (DC speak). It was proforma, it was in a mediocre room with no attempt to pretty it up. Food, a joke, they actually were down to chips and pretzels around 10 PM. High priced drinks, and can’t remember the entertainer. BUT, the VEEP and wife were there for 4-6 minutes and later, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (POTUS)- again DC speak. What a ROAR, what emotion, thousands of cell phones in the air taking photos ad movies of the POTUS. He spoke, they ROARED approval, they danced, they SCREAMED, he spoke again and waved, they ROARED, They waved goodbye, THEY ROOOOOOOARED Good wishes and goodbye. It was an adrenalin high for one and all

What was in it for me besides the very average pay? The extreme pleasure of taking photos of happy people and portraying them with bright eyes and joy all over their faces. Many looked in the camera and were so happy every one including POPS was looking happy. The families were the best. I joked with the kids asking them how they cajoled “pop” to spring for the shindig. A big motivator for me was the badge, and three more notches in my photo gun belt.

Just got a call, pictures up on web site. Here is the URL. http://reflectionsphotoinc.com

Next adventure a speaking engagement in NY next Tues, more later

Kentucky

This was a ball; a real high class event. There were no blatant faux pas, like ostentatious eye makeup or overbearing decolletage or Convention Center cement walls dressed in bunting. The polite, conservative mannered Kentuckians poured southern hospitality almost as easily as the booze flowed from the bottles of Jim Bean and Maker's Mark. And when the music began, "grinding" to Pink was far from making an appearance. (But Ashley Judd and Mama Judd did and Blue grass charm radiated from them). The entertainment here included Motown's finest, The Temptations, who sang Happy Birthday to Muhammad Ali

...and I photographed it all.

This was the nicest of the the 7 balls I have attended.

How do I describe a “INAUGURAL BALL”?

Ball 1 of 3: I arrived 3 hours early to avoid the traffic and unannounced road changes. It was to be an easy commute. Well, that ain’t what happened. Long story short, traffic was worse than expected. We picked up our credentials, missed a delivery to the National Press Club because of un-announced road closures and were repeatedly rerouted by police whose only response was “keep moving THAT WAY.” Side Note: My daughter was in “HUMAN GRIDLOCK for 30-minute trip to cross Pennsylvania Ave to get to the concert. (She lives 4 blocks from the mall and never made it.)

The “Latino Ball” at $200 a pop was different for me. I was a candid photographer, not chained to a portrait line. Many of the guests were from California, Texas, and Chicago. The crowd was different. Whole families attended; groups of 6, 10, and 16, from patriarch to grand kids. (I assume “Pops” or “Grand Pop” sprang for the group.) WOW, never saw this before.

The entertainment was different too; big name stars like JLo and George Lopez. A star-studded night with only a few simple hiccoughs (You think a stage pass will get you up on the stage or even close to it? Only if there are no people in the room.), but was it fun? You bet!

One down, two to go.

Can my extreme photo experience help a bride?

Donald Keith is back and ready to take the blogging world head on...again. Check out our archive!

Inaugural Balls

Barack Obama will be sworn in at the 55th Presidential Inauguration on January 20th. This will be the fourth inauguration I've photographed.

I remember my last inauguration like it was yesterday. There I was, the night before the inauguration up on a 5-story open scaffolding with 300 other photographers...only my position was smack in the middle of the platform on the highest level.

All of a sudden there was a tap on my shoulder and a badge in my face. A voce said, "Secret Service, " Oops! what the hell did they want? They wanted to see my badge, which, of course, I showed them. They grabbed it, still on the chain around my neck, looked at it with a scowl and pushed it back to me with a look of disgust. They were pissed for having to walk up five stories on a swaying rig. I asked what the problem was. Apparently one of the other photographers reported me as having a counterfeit badge. Well, of course mine looked different. It was gold pass (see above), one of only 74 that allowed the photographer full access to all areas. I pumped my fist in the air, looked at a bunch of the guys I knew from other events and yelled, "YES!!!!" My adrenaline high.
This year I'm shooting three inaugural balls. The most I ever have at one inaugural, but then again, this is unlike any other inaugural I ever worked. This year I want to take photographs that the people will pass on to their grandchildren, to say I hurried up to stand around for 4-6 hours and then to photograph for 4-5 hours straight, no break, no food, maybe a drink of water, and the grand prize, the brass ring on the merry-go-round, a badge. A badge that very few photographers in the country will have. That junky piece of plastic says, I DID IT, a souvenir, a piece of history, a notch in the belt of a gunfighter.