AWHL Annual Fundraiser....

April 15th 2011 was a historic day for the AWHL. It was the night of their annual fundraiser and I was glad to help out with a bit of setup and a night of photography. It’s very little in comparison of countless hours that are put into setting this event up but it’s always a pleasure to work with these wonderful women. It was held at the Old Mill and the theme this year was “Cirque” which included performances by A2D2 (an aerial dance company ) around the venue and a show in the middle of the dinner. A fantastic show for a great event. The silent Auction was a success as well as the evening as a whole as they were able to go above and beyond their goals for fundraiser! So many busy signals were taken care of that night and I’m glad I’m able to show a few images from that evening:

Upcoming events and boredom....

I haven’t been up to much in terms of photography.  I guess it’s that in between season where we switch between fall and winter. It’s been warm here in Toronto and I’ve been waiting for the first real snowfall.  I enjoy winter photography the most, but at the same time I rarely get a chance to get that perfect photo.  This winter I plan on making more of an effort to just get out there. In the mean time I’ve been going through some old photos and doing some random processing on them. 

The next few are some HDR panorama’s I’ve worked on. They’re a very contrasty compared to my usual work, however trying to get an image that I was happy with is something I wanted to really work on.  I used a few exposures of the same image to create these HDR images and tweaked it with some masking and layers in Photoshop.  Not perfect by any means but I’m still working on my skills.

In the near future I’ll be doing another AWHL event.  Their 25^th anniversary party is coming up and I’ve been asked to take a few snaps.  I was lucky enough to take photos at their last event (“celebrate the women in your life”) with hostess Melissa Grelo.  It’ll be a lot of fun I’m sure! And it’s in a great venue! More details and photos to come!!!

Celebrate the women in your life….a few images…

As mentioned in a previous post I photographed the “Celebrate the women in your life” event for the AWHL the other month.  I thought I’d post a few quick snaps of what went on. 



Update on Friday, May 28, 2010 by Vivek Bhattacharyya

AWHL chose a few key photos from the event to post on their site. You can find their images here: http://awhl.org/CTWIYL_2010_gallery.htm

Celebrate the Women in your Life....

Yesterday I was lucky enough to shoot the AWHL (Assaulted Women’s Helpline) annual Celebrate the Women in your life fundraiser.   I normally just Web-Admin for them but they asked me to take photos after seeing some of my portfolio.   It was a great experience!! I went in trying to figure out what equipment I may need to successfully shoot the event.  I went in with all my equipment plus a couple of borrowed pieces, and a full stock of recharged batteries for flashes and my

camera. In the end I used the following: 5dmk2 body, 2x580ex2 flashes, 20+ GB memory, Canon 70-200L IS F2.8, 24-105L IS and several batteries.   Notice I left out my usual prime 50mm.  that’s mainly because there was another photog doing portrait type shots so I felt I could get away with the more versatile 24-105.  Not the most ideal lens would be the 24-70 but I don’t own one of those given what type of work I usually do. 

The day was long as I was helping out with the setup of the event beginning at 10am! By the end, 12:30am the next day, I was sore and could really use a relaxing pub with a pint.    The photography part was particularly tiring since I was holding almost 5+ lbs of equipment most of the night (the body + 70-200 combination).  I didn’t mind since I was in the moment but afterwards…wow what a relief to pack that away.  Overall the images came out amazing.  I have yet to go through all of them and process but I have a great feeling I have a lot of wonderful shots.  The processing will hopefully be done by the end of this coming week so I’ll post an update ASAP. 

My only regret would be not getting a photo with the host of the evening, CP24’s Melissa Grelo.  She did a wonderful job and I’m sure she had a very long day as well since I was watching her while getting ready to head downtown at 7am. 

Lesson learned:  Try to avoid having paper cuts while shooting all night.  The next day my hands were mighty swollen.   

All in all, a wonderful night!  Thousands were raised for the helpline and everyone had a wonderful time!