I love design. My friend, Tabitha Mahaffey, the mastermind of Tabitha Mahaffey Designs, says when you’re in a well designed space, you breathe a sigh of relief. I feel that. I had the opportunity to help create some social media content for her Ridglea project. I got to do behind the scenes video footage on installation day and then capture the beautiful details once the construction and interior design project was complete. As a portrait photographer, I love when designers will get in the photo. Potential clients want to see your work, and they want to know who you are as a person. If you are an interior designer and have an interior design project in the DFW or North Texas area that you need photographed, I’d love to help.

Satori DFW Corporate Event & Holiday Party Photography

It seems that many new photographers become event photographers. That was how I began my career back in 2008 as an associate photographer for a local wedding photographer. And, honestly, it’s ironic that new, green photographers photograph events. It’s now 2022, and I’ve done a little bit of everything in the photography industry. I am not a fan of the saying “jack of all trades, master of none” because it sounds demeaning. I’ve spent the better part of the past decade attempting to master light. NYC headshot photographer says you never master lighting or people, and this is perhaps what keeps me humble trying. Every scenario is different, and with event photography, that is especially true. At this point in my career, I have the best equipment money can buy, and I can photograph events in all types of circumstances. When I began in 2008, I just had a bounce flash. I shutter to think. (See what I did there.)

For this holiday party for a DFW investment firm at Lonesome Dove in the iconic Fort Worth Stockyards, we set up a headshot inspired photo booth for cocktail hour. The company brought props that coordinated with their brand colors, and we brought some punchy fun lighting. It took those rather boring “step and repeat” photos on a backdrop to the next level. Additionally, we brought some warm lighting to the event space to complement the red and woody tones of the space. My style for events is photojournalistic meets cinematic, and this mixed lighting checks those boxes. 

Although this event was on the smaller side, I was grateful to have one of the best associate photographers, Maggie, photographing with me. As a general rule, we bring one photographer for every one hundred guests, but with the photo booth, I felt as if we needed two present to capture candid photos as well. 

If you have a holiday party or corporate event and would like professional photography, let us know. We’d love to help.

Photo sessions such as this one stretch me a bit to integrate all that I know about:

posing people and connecting them with each other and the camera, balancing light and shadows, incorporating color and texture, compensating for both film and digital photography, as well as print and web media.

I’ve been at this photography thing for a minute, and the technical is beginning to become second nature, and because my brain doesn’t have to work so hard, it’s fun to create in this way. It’s almost intuitive– there’s a flow to it. 

I’ve been a fan of Hilary Tipps’ and Steve Obermiller’s music for several years, and I was honored when they asked me to create photos for their upcoming music release. We created these images in my studio with Cinestill 800t as well as a Sony A7RIV and several Profoto strobes and constant lights with color gels. And, then I shot through toule and prisms, and created some double exposures. I couldn’t give all my secrets away if I tried because there’s really no recreating this.

So much of my work revolves around consistency– matching headshots from one photo session to another and ensuring everything is lit exactly the same way and cropped cohesively. Never will you find portraits like this again. Art can be imitated but not replicated.