This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to shoot the TEDx Atlanta Conference at the Ferst Center at Georgia Tech. The evening before the talks I visited the venue, and got a quick tour of all the places that I could go, and all the places I needed to stay away from to keep from walking in front of the video cameras and crew from Turner that were recording the event.

I quickly realized that I’d need a long lens and a bright lens to get the best shots of the speakers. The room was very dark, with the exception of the speaker giving the presentation and they didn’t want me to be up in front of the audience or creating a distraction for the speaker. I can’t imagine how stressful it would be to give a TED talk to a room full of folks!

For this shoot I used 2 camera bodies, my crop-sensor Nikon D90 with a 70mm – 200mm f/2.8 for the tight shots of the speakers, and my Nikon D810 with a 24mm-70mm f/2.8 for the room shots.

While all the presentations were fantastic, I was so taken with one that Susanna Spaccia from re:imagine ATL gave that I’ve volunteered to assist in her Green Room project by producing some “band photos” for young kids that are forming musical groups and producing their own music video for a song they’re recording.

If you’d like to know more about TEDxAtlanta, head over to http://tedxatlanta.com.

John McNicholas