Greetings from the IMF

Sorry it's been so long since my last post, it's not that I haven't been busy, it's been more like nothing has really grabbed me as something worth posting until now!

I scored a great gig this week working as what used to be & occasionally still is called a "tape op". For this gig it is more "data wrangling". I took the videos recorded to an AJA Ki-Pro after the press conferences and backed them up to to "G-Drives" (1 & 2 Tera Bite drives if your interested) . It was pretty straight forward but still took some time as many of the files were as large as 85gigs!!!

One of the more unique parts of this gig is the interest it can draw even for DC...

So the majority of the week it was business as usual, but on Friday night the trucks pictured above from DC Government rolled in with a ton of "Jersey Barriers" & fencing to isolate the IMF & World Bank so that the protesters that tend to show up on the weekends can be kept at arms length. (It may have been the rain or it may have been the fact that this is the "smaller" of the 2 annual meetings, but there never was much of a protest impact on this week's meetings.

And of course saving the best for last one of the great things about working jobs like this is the great people you get to meet!

Bridget (on the left) & Ellie (on the right) were part of the crew that made sure the room was "per spec" in advance of each group coming in for their press conference. They'd swoop in as an island of calm & organization while others were flying around in a panic it seemed and put "things right"!

Thanks You Ladies! Hope to see you again...

I do have a couple of other things to post from the past and will get to them as soon as I can ;-)

Cheers,

-S.

Flying High In Ice & Snow!!

Greetings from lovely Haines, Alaska! We're just wrapping up an excellent week long workshop with Jon Cornforth on nature photography. Here I am with fellow attendees (L->R) Yolanda, Steve & our mentor Jon. We would have invited the other participants to pose for the photo but as you can see from the image below they can be a bit "testy" from time to time...

I also wanted to take a second to express my most gracious THANKS to Canon Professional Services for the loan of the 600mm f/4 lens & brand new 7D camera body to road test during this project. Needless to say the preformed flawlessly in some pretty harsh conditions!

Many Thanks CPS!! Cheers, -S

A Fine Night of Fashion

Last night I had the great pleasure of hanging with Isabel & Ruben Toledo at the Swiss Embassy in Washington, DC where they, with the help of Nordstrom, presented a fashion show of Isabel's latest designs. Isabel of course most recently noted for designing Michelle Obama's Inaugural Dress.

Nordie's display techs did an amazing job of turning the Ambassador's living room window into an oversize store window for one night. The invited crowd were all very impressed by the show. (Many thanks to Pascal for helping the evening go so smoothly.)
Cheers, -S

Well Done You!!!

Just a quick note to say a heart felt Congratulations to my long time friends Majorie & Claude on the occasion of their 50th (yes that's FIVE ZERO) wedding anniversary!! And here's to many more to come. Cheers, -S

Fun & Food in Seattle

It was a great day in Seattle today! I started off my afternoon by going up to Jack's Cellar at the south end of Lake City way to meld two of my favorite activities (photography & wine tasting) together. My long time friend, Seattle Photographer Steve Schneider was having the reception for his show "The First Three Songs". It's a selection of some of his shots from 25 years of shooting Rock & Roll concerts, including some great classic Grateful Dead images. The show runs thru the end of September so if your in the Seattle area you should definitely stop by and check it out!

And the Barberas wines were pretty good too!

After the tasting I met up with my long time friends Shirley & Dan and we went to check out a very new and much anticipated addition to the "Ballard Dining Scene". It's called Delancey. In fact it's so new it didn't even have a name anywhere on the building ("it's a work in progress")...

Delancey is the child of Molly Wizenberg of the "Orangette" Blog and her husband Brandon. I'm a fan of both her writing and her photography so when I got to Seattle it was definitely high on the list! The "3 of us" arrived about 6:30 and were told it would be about an hour, bummer. But we drank adult beverages in the entry area and a table opened up in about 30 minutes...

As to the ambiance, I'd just say simple and clean. With nice details like the salt/pepper flake bowls on the tables.

We ordered a couple more "adult hop based beverages" along with a "Billy's Tomatos" Salad that we split between the 3 of us and everyone really enjoyed. Then for the main event the "New York Style" wood fired oven baked pizzas!!! We split 2 pizzas between us, a strait up pepperoni and for number 2 the "Padron" with roasted padron peppers. Simple review, both pizzas WERE EXCELLENT!

And for desert, well we tried two options off the menu. Shirley chose the fresh fruit popsicle in a tall shot glass, I of course went with the Chocolate Chip Cookie with gray salt. Let me just say that while there was some pizza taken with us and enjoyed later... I don't believe there was any evidence that we even ordered desert!! I'll definitely return as often as I can! Thanks Molly & Brandon and your excellent staff for an excellent experience. Cheers, S

An afternoon at the beach...

I had a lovely afternoon with Stu Mineta. Stu is a an experienced airline pilot who grew up commuting between Virginia during the school year and the flying back to the family home in San Jose California for the summers. Those flights back to California are where he first got the flying bug. But while we chatted about his youth and life flying airplanes for a living what we were really there for was to talk about what he remembered growing up about his dad.

You see his dad is former Congressman & Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta. Stu's dad has had quite a career and life so far... from being interned at Heart Mountain as a youth to serving as Mayor of San Jose, a member of the US House of Representatives for 20 years and the positions as both Secretary of Commerce & Transportation as well as a recipient of the Presidential Metal of Freedom. But with all his accomplishments one of the best quotes from Stu was that "with all that my father has done in his professional life... to me he's always just been dad."

Thanks again to the Mineta family for a great afternoon!

Cheers,

-s

It's all about the light!

Today I had the distinct pleasure of attending one of Joe McNally’s location lighting workshops today in Dobbs Ferry, NY. Joe brings in a fine staff of assistants along with a collection of professional models including (pictured here with Joe and I) “the Lovely” John Starace, here in his turnout gear from his previous career as a NYC Fire Fighter.

We had a great day experimenting with a variety of lighting tools in several different locations around the building. Joe has a great way of sharing his knowledge and encouraging experimentation and creativity. While not all of the information you’re exposed to in workshops like this one is “new”, it’s the chance to get together with new faces and see different approaches that others have that can really help get you out of your comfortable rut and back to exploring new trails!!! Thanks again to one and all for a great day! -S