Signs, Grips And Words

I got back from the Irish Businesswomen’s conference this evening and am about to collapse into my bed. It was a brilliant couple of days and I thoroughly enjoyed being there and taking part as well as taking the photographs but today I’m exhausted. I gained a new respect for photographers who cover day-long events like weddings…they really earn their money.

The photographs of the conference are up on Flickr, Conn will have the Podcasts up very soon and Keith Bohanna live-blogged the event, so with Annette chairing the day’s proceedings and Alan being one of the speakers, bloggers successfully infiltrated the conference.

We’re becoming a little like the masons…we need a secret handshake.

12 Responses to "Signs, Grips And Words"

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  1. annette

    May 19, 2007 at 11:58 pm

    Claire-the pix are fabulous and you deserve a weekend break in that spa for all the work you put in! pleasure working, blogging and eating pizza with you!

  2. gingerpixel

    May 20, 2007 at 12:16 am

    Thank you Annette, I have to say “right back at ya,” it was great fun getting to spend time with you. You did a fantastic job of chairing the event…I’ve never been at a conference were everything ran so smoothly and bang on time! Pity we didn’t have an extra day to take advantage of that wonderful spa.

  3. keith bohanna

    May 20, 2007 at 9:54 am

    Damn the likes of you and your creative kin :-)

    Enjoyed meeting you Claire and nice to see yourself and Emma Eustace indulge in a mutual luv-fest!

    keith

  4. Cybez

    May 20, 2007 at 8:31 pm

    We’re becoming a little like the masons…we need a secret handshake. that’s an idea, no idea how it would work. :-)

  5. John of Dublin

    May 20, 2007 at 9:41 pm

    Hi Claire, that looked busier than a wedding! Great work, it must have been a thrill to have such a target rich location!

  6. Frank Fullard

    May 20, 2007 at 10:17 pm

    Claire – your pictures of the IBW event are terrific. You managed to captured in pictures in a very real way the atmosphere of the networking evening.
    Thanks again for everything you have done for the IBW community.

    Frank Fullard

  7. Davy McDonald

    May 21, 2007 at 11:38 am

    Great photos Claire, I’m sure you had a hard day’s work all right. Some really good shots of the people but I really liked the one of the empty rows of wine glasses (says a lot about me eh?). I hope you get plenty of requests for prints form the attendees, they look great in your photos.

    A few photog questions…
    All in available light?
    What ISO typically?

    Looks like you’re putting the 1.8 aperture to good use too.

    And, inevitably… How’re you getting on with Lightroom?

    ;-)

  8. aquaasho

    May 21, 2007 at 12:46 pm

    well done claire!

  9. gingerpixel

    May 21, 2007 at 2:49 pm

    Keith: It was a real buzz for me to get to meet Emma, I’ve been a fan of her Big Leap Design cards for years…ever since I was a lowly art shop assistant in Dun Laoghaire. So yes, it was a bit of a mutual appreciation society :D

    Cybez: I think I’m already able to locate the bloggers in any gathering…it’s that shifty look that says “Careful, or I’ll blog about ya.”

    John: “Target-rich environment” haha! Yes, it was a bit like that. At one point there was a call for everyone in the room to start shaking eachother’s hands and try to meet everyone and I thought I was going to drop the camera trying to get all the shots!

    Frank: Thank you so much, it was a great weekend and I came away exhausted but energised. Congratulations on a great conference!

    Aquaasho: Thank you :)

    Davy…see my next comment and I’ll dish all the technical dirt ;)

  10. gingerpixel

    May 21, 2007 at 2:56 pm

    Davy: I couldn’t resist taking a few of the more still-life type shots…glad to know someone else likes those too!

    Yes, it was all shot using available light. The Networking Evening was quite low-light so thank goodness for that f1.8 lens. I just didn’t want to use flash because it would have made it impossible for me to remain unobtrusive and catch people behaving naturally.

    I shot mostly at ISO 1600 for the evening and 800 for the actual conference. The noise level at 1600 was pretty bad and goes on my list of “Reasons why I really need a Canon 5d.”

    This was one occasion where I could have done with Lightroom. Editing 300 photographs on Friday night after a full day’s shooting using only Picasa (I only had my laptop so didn’t even have Photoshop) was a good sales pitch for Lightroom for sure.

  11. omaniblog

    May 22, 2007 at 12:19 am

    What a great set of shots. I particularly like your angle of view: those photos could so easily have become boring and predictable. But your style kept me alert all the way through the lot. It’s a tremendous record of Irish business faces in 2007. You could feel the levity in the air.

    I wonder what your cropping policy is?

  12. gingerpixel

    May 22, 2007 at 9:11 pm

    Thanks Omani, that’s really nice to know as it’s what I hoped to do with them.

    My cropping policy (as much as I have one) is to crop only when absolutely neccessary. I try to get that part of it right when I’m taking the photo but if it’s needed I go ahead and crop to get the better composition.

    Is that what you meant?