Look. I'm smiling. It must have been a fun job.

T.D.A. Lofton and me at the event.

I did a fun job yesterday evening (Sunday) and I wanted to write about it because I come off as being so dour sometimes. I thought I would talk about having fun on jobs instead of always making it sound like challenges and technical drudgery.

My friend, Debbie Kern, with whom I've done events in at least four countries, invited me/assigned me to take photographs for a party at the Austin Lexus dealership. The party started at 5 and went till 8 pm. The catering was done by Austin veteran caterers, Currant Event and it was wonderful, a slap in the face to the subsistence entertaining people ended up doing during the great recession. Everything from fresh crab legs to bacon wrapped quail. The bars were plentiful and well stocked and the new space, with a barrel vault ceiling, was spacious and open.

I walked thru the crowds with an assistant provided by the client. Her job was to get the names of the couples and members of groups I photographed. I did an equal number of staged and unstaged photographs and another third of the images were of the food, decor and the cars. I saw my first Lexus LFA, a $400,000 carbon fiber ultra performance car, of which 500 exist worldwide.

I used three different cameras, mostly just for fun. I used a Nex-7 with the kit lens (18-55) for wide shots and really tight detail stuff---all with natural light. I used a Sony a57 with a 16-50mm lens and a Sony flash with a bounce panel for all the flash images (groups, couples, etc.) and a Sony a77 with a 35mm 1.8 as a grab shot available light camera.  Nothing long.

The pace was party cruise. No tight schedule, no big set ups. I'd almost forgotten how much fun it can be to work as a photographer at a well executed and happy party.

The image above is the first iPhone image to grace the VSL blog. It is what it is. At least it hasn't been run through the filter-mania... I'll grudgingly admit that it's a pretty good shot.