Dancing on top of a pool at Treasure Island Yacht & Tennis Club on New Years' Eve 2009
This was only the second time in my life, and first time since high school, that I worked on New Year's Eve. From 7pm December 31, 2009 to 2am January 01, 2010 I was photographing the Treasure Island Yacht & Tennis Club's lavish New Year's Eve Party featuring John Secada and The Commodores.
No expense was spared to impress guests as they arrived at the Treasure Island Yacht & Tennis Club on New Year's Eve 2009
The Treasure Island Yacht & Tennis Club's New Year's Eve event was my highest profile job to date. It was also my most prolific job too nearly filling to capacity three 8GB memory cards. Over the course of the 7 hours of shooting I literally only stopped shooting for four minutes as I ate half the sandwich I had packed away in my stowed camera bag. Ultimately, I delivered over 700 edited images to the client in just a one week turnaround.
There were three different dinner areas all very well decorated.
There was no lack of activity during the New Year's party as there were three distinct areas for guests to dine, dance and party in. In the yacht club building itself there were two floors of entertainment. The second floor was an intimate setting with John Secada performing, and the third floor was a large and lively dining hall with The Commodores rocking the place.
2010 made it easy to fashion eyewear of itself.
The third location was actually right on top of a pool (see top photo), covered in a $90,000 system of plexiglass sheets that formed a see-through dance floor--that could only be used once as it would be too scratched to use again! Here a cover band called Stormbringer provided rock and pop stalwarts.
There were many chances to dance cheek-to-cheek.
While it was great to have three areas to find candid event scenes to photograph, it made for a lot of stair climbing and grounds walking! Also, since I never took a real break and always had my Nikon D300 with a Nikkor SB-800 (thanks Pedro!) mounted on it around my neck, not to mention a Nikon D90 with Nikkor 50mm 1.8D lens too, by the end of my night my right arm had never been so tired from shooting before!
Romantically ringing in the new year on the dance floor at the Treasure Island Yacht & Tennis Club
Despite the endurance challenges, this was by far my most exciting photography job. The guests, yacht club staff and the entertainers were all very friendly and made my job easier with their help. The guests were all in a really good mood and mostly loved to have their photograph taken. The staff was fun to talk to and get behinds the scenes info from (like suggestions to shoot from behind the bar). Special thanks to Sara for thinking of me for photographing this event. I could tell she put a tireless effort into making this a great event.
