AltAwards Pool Party and Panels
Soooo . . . Story Time!
I had a small and unfortunate issue over at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas. The whole crew whom was covering the event was told that they may not bring in cameras to the pool area. We were told we had clearance before hand but was stopped by security when trying to enter. So I decided to enter without my main rig and just used my Samsung phone for a lot of pool party pics. A short bit later we were given the green light to go in with our main cameras to photograph the pool party event. Then after a bit, I went back into the conference area to take photos of the panels and happy hour things. On my way back to the pool, the other photogs and video guys were coming up to the conference halls and they informed me that they got kicked out as Sahara management changed their minds about professional photography in the area. So with that new info, it started the back and forth of dropping my Sony camera in my room and swapping it with my Samsung phone to cover the pool party and then every hour, going back to my room to get my camera to cover the panels and such inside, then back to my room to drop off the camera to then go back outside to the pool with my phone to take more photos. It was a bit of a headache but not only did I really want to get the shots of everything, this was a great test of my phone’s camera abilities and having to toss it into the pool water every so often to cool it off from over heating. In the end, I am extremely happy with my phone’s camera. I really hope you all enjoy these photos as this was a crazy situation that I have never found myself in. Also fun fact, this was not an issue last year as I used my main camera last year, here at the Sahara. Those photos can be seen here.
