2008-2009 Palm Beach Community College men's and women's basketball

Initially this photo shoot of the 2008-2009 Palm Beach Community College men's and women's basketball teams was supposed to be in their Gymnasium but because of the Barack Obama's “Growing American Jobs” summit event they decided not to cancel but to do it outside on the schools campus.

This caused for some unique challenges, one having a large number of people out in the heat. I was hired to do team photos as well as individual shots for their web site and program. The first challenge was trying to find a location where I would have some type of elevations and then try to work with the direction of the light. This was accomplished with a circular fountain that I could have one row sitting and another standing but the lighting was all wrong. The lighting was more side lighting than I would have liked but it did give me some separation from the background and I used a medium soft box as a fill light.

I attempted to work as quickly as possible because of the heat but also tried to give more than one look. I shot a lot tighter for the girl’s team because they didn't want me to show their shoes. After, getting the standard shots where you can see faces and numbers when you try to go after some fun shots.

Barack Obama “Growing American Jobs” summit Palm Beach Community College Lake Worth Campus

Today made for an interesting day. I was contracted a couple weeks ago to photograph the Palm Beach Community College men's and women's basketball teams at the schools Elizabeth W. Erling Gymnasium at the Lake Worth campus. I found out the day before that Barack Obama was hosting an event that morning in the same gymnasium. I have covered these types of events before so I thought that the school would cancel the photo shoot but they decided not to do the shoot in the gym but to do it on campus.

Scents I was going to be on campus anyway I decided to apply for press credential for the Barack Obama event. I had gotten an email from the Obama campaign that’s how I knew about the event to begin with. So after I knew that I had a credential I decided to go early and hang around the school until my photo shoot with the basketball teams. After arriving almost three hours early there was still nowhere to park and the school was like a zoo as I expect.

Once I actually got on campus security got people through pretty quickly. It was actually kind of funny because my contact person with the schools marketing department for the afternoon basketball shoot that I had not met but only talked with on the phone was the first person I met at the security entrance for the Obama event.

Instead of the expected Obama Rally, he had a “Growing American Jobs” summit with Governors Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Bill Ritter of Colorado and Ted Strickland of Ohio, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to discuss the economic challenges that they are seeing firsthand and talk about the impact that Senator Obama’s Economic Rescue plan for the middle class would have on the economy in communities across America.


Participants in the Barack Obama “Growing American Jobs” summit from left to right
The Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson, Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker, Senator Barack Obama, owner of South Florida-based Victoria & Associates Victoria Villalba, Governor of Ohio Ted Strickland, CEO of Google Eric Schmidt and Governor of Colorado Bill Ritter.

Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm talks about issues in her state as former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker looks on.

CEO of Google Eric Schmidt, left, looks on as the Governor of Colorado Bill Ritter elaborates about economic challenges in his state.

Barack Obama addresses the crowd.