Lesson Learned

I tried an experiment yesterday during the wedding of Marsha and Joshua… Could I share their wedding day with friends, near & far using tech? Well, I left home equipped with my Blackberry, laptop, Sprint phone card and excitement.

WEDDING LOGISTICS — the Challenges

Wedding: St. Timothy’s Catholic Church / Reception: The Sofitel Hotel, Beverly Hills

I knew going in that the church would be the X factor. Most churches have rules of engagement. Some Catholic churches are especially tough to work in. In this case, I could not use flash and I had no access to a frontal view of the couple during the service. I brought along a remote camera, but I could only place it in the balcony. It was pretty dark inside this beautiful church, so the 50 f/1.4 lens was my lens of choice. I ended up using a 50mm f/2.5 lens on the Canon remote from the balcony. I would have used something wider, if I were covering a church service there. Very few wedding couples have the deep pockets to fill the seats of a big church like this for their wedding day.

The Sofitel sits across the street from the Beverly Center. Celebrities hang out there, so hotel security was on my mind every time that I entered public areas. I get Paparazzi treatment sometimes at venues like this. Maybe, that's why the lobby is so dark... lots of black walls and tones to help the stars hide. I saw rap artist Heavy D in the valet area when I was leaving. By daylight, the hotel restaurant is pretty low key. When I left, the velvet rope was up, and bouncers were turning away people from this spot.

It’s a beautiful hotel, but cell service is pretty spotty inside. I encountered a problem uploading images during the reception and asked about securing Wi-Fi… no Wi-Fi in the ballroom. Solution… I moved the laptop closer to the window.

A quick note on ambiance: A beautiful location like Jamaica... this church & hotel are best viewed with light. Darkness, or challenging light make it really difficult for both photographers and videographers to tell the story. I used remote strobes fired by Pocket Wizard remotes to shoot most of the reception. It was still pretty dark. People in the room will remember how fab the setting was, but a dark setting will rob distant friends from sharing in the experience.

TECH CHALLENGES

I was able to post images and updates flawlessly using my Blackberry and UberTwitter to both Twitter and Facebook. The nice part about UberTwitter was the ability to geotag the photos.

I also used Tweetdeck from the laptop to post a few images. One problem… the tiny URL led to a photo of a moose instead of the wedding image that I selected. Care in typing is critical when adding a message to a tiny URL posting. I probably changed one character in the tiny URL by mistake. I had to pull that posting from Facebook quick, once I found out... Thanks Isidra!

SmugMug rocks! I had created a SmugMug gallery for Marsha and Joshua on Thursday right after our session at Manhattan Beach. I sent that link to Marsha via email and posted it on her Facebook Wall. I made sure to add a note with the posting that I would be updating the gallery on the wedding day, so friends and family could follow. During the reception, I was able to add photos quickly using the laptop/Sprint card. I added video today.

I also created a gallery on Facebook. That gallery was still empty when I got home from the wedding… nothing but problems. Java this… error that… The Facebook uploader would not work for me from the hotel. Fortunately, the SmugMug link was on her Facebook page already and it was working.

LESSON LEARNED

I knew going in that there would be a few challenges. I’m pretty pleased though with the results. I was able in the end to harness the internet and use it to broadcast emotions and images of the wedding to distant family… not the next week… not the next day… but, during the wedding on the wedding day.

I will be using this technology during June from the Playboy Jazz Festival and also from Chicago when I cover the NAWBO national convention. I plan to even use my blog to post profiles of women in business during the NAWBO event. I’m loving tech right now!

CAMERA BAG – TECH STUFF

2- Nikon D300 bodies / 4 lenses / 6 SB speedlights
1 - Canon 40D / 50 2.5 Macro
A few light stands, umbrellas, 2- Lumedyne power packs, 4- Pocket Wizard remotes, & a Sekonic meter. I brought a tripod along so that I could set up a remote camera. I also had the Canon G-9 in my bag for video. I’m not a videographer, but I thought that a few clips would be a nice touch.