Private School Fundraiser Event Photography - GVS A Knight Out 2020

NYC Fundaiser Photographer

The Green Vale School parent community came together for A KNIGHT Out which was exactly that: a time to gather and dance, and celebrate Green Vale. With live and silent auctions generous donors and bidders opened their wallets for a good cause. I was lucky to be invited back as their event photographer.

Photographing a repeat event

2020 marked my fourth year photographing this event. This year, the school’s fundraiser was hosted at a new venue, which forced me to stoke my creative photography process . Like always, I arrived early to the evening so I could photograph room decorations, along with key group photos before guests arrived. Previously, I knew the event space and had a game plane on how to photograph the event throughout the evening. This included where and how I’d photograph the fundraiser’ speakers and guests. This year, I had to constantly adjust to photograph the event.

Event Photography - From Long Island to New York City

Regardless of where the event is and no matter how many hours you hire a photographer for the goal of that photographer is to document the event. Photographing detail photos, group shots, candids, and large photos showing off the space should be his/her goal.

Venue: The Space at Westbury

Investiture Ceremony - Stony Brook University Medical

Stony Brook University Medicine installation ceremony celebrating three of their outstanding faculty members and many of their generous benefactors. Prior photographing the event I photographed the honorees with the school’s president and the medical school’s president. Then, I photographed the event and the post event reception. As a Long Island Event Photographer, my job is always to photograph the Who, What, When, Where, and Why of the event.

long island event photographers are always photographing moments both big and small.

Super Bowl LIV Watch Party | Columbia-Barnard

Quick event photography coverage for Columbia-Barnard’s Hillel, The Kraft Center, as students watch the Super Bowl. Photographing their students relaxing, eating wings, and just being college kids is always a lot of fun to capture.

NYC LSAT Prep Class - TestMasters

Photographing a class in action

These photos are from a Thursday afternoon higher education photography style shoot for TestMasters. TestMasters offers students throughout the United States prep classes for the LSAT, GMAT, GRE, SAT, and ACT. When photographing for TestMasters, I am given a structure of how to photograph the class and a guide defining what type of photos are considered deliverable. When photographing, I have to be as unobtrusive as possible.

How to be a good higher education photographer …

I always try to arrive early. This lets me create my own situations, between the students and between students-teachers before class starts. Student-Teacher engagement is key! Basically, a teacher and a student working together.

After I capture student-teacher engagement and “active learning” with some of my own stylized scenarios the class can actually begins (on time!). As the teacher and class get going I sit in various seats around the room. Every few minutes I move to capture a new vantage point.

Shalom Hartman Institute | Full Day Conference - January 27, 2020

On Monday, I photographed another full day conference for Shalom Hartman Institute at their Morningside Heights Manhattan, NY office. Most of the photos were candids and some were a bit more staged. The staged photos aimed to show “engagement” and a “shared learning experience”, all of the keywords I often hear in Higher Education Photography. During this conference, I had more time and flexibility to photograph the conference participants in posed groups.

Event Photographers play a large part in helping an organizations marketing/advertising messaging hit home.

As a NYC event photographer, I always strive to photograph the “5 Ws”; Who, What, Where, When, and Why. I want to photograph who attended the event, where was the event, what was the event’s purpose, when was the event, and why was there an event and not a zoom meeting. For an event photographer, their schedule can be jammed packed with assignments, especially at full day conferences. Other times, the event he/she is photographing can be slow. None the less, it is my job to tell the story of the event and show the event in its best light.

Joseph Lieberman | Yale Club NYC

Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, who represented Connecticut in the Senate from 1989 to 2013 and was chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, spoke to Yale alumni at the Yale Club in New York City. I photographed the event from the sides of the room and from several empty seats in the back of the room.

As an event photographer my job is to discreetly photograph the event as it happens and not to be distracting.

Playing the role of the Yale Club NYC Event Photographer for the evening I really tried to photograph all angles and perspectives. I photograph from the sides of the event, behind the speakers (remote camera), above the audience and through the audience, to make it feel like you too were sitting in the audience as you view my photos.

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