I had the privilege of photographing TEDx Portland this year, held at the Gerding Theater at the Armory. I'm not an event photographer but I love the TED talks and saw it as an opportunity to challenge myself in new ways that I'm not used to in weddings & portraits. My main purpose was to be photographing the stage, and backstage areas during the event but I really wanted to make a few editorial-style portraits along the way. If any of you have been to an event as organized and tightly run as TEDx, you probably know that I was dreaming. One of my favorite talks was by Aithan Shapira who does incredible work (times a billion), and his work is not surprisingly world-renown. His talk was called "Contemporary Cubism," challenging artists to look at subjects from multiple perspectives, to value the beauty in detail and to not be afraid to gather those details in different ways. When Aithan finished his talk, he very kindly agreed to let me make a quick portrait. It took one minute in a dimly lit backstage hallway, but I hope it honors the discussion.
More pictures will be coming and you can check back with the TEDx PDX website for when the videos of the talks drop online.
