I recently received an email about shooting corporate events and holiday parties, and while I don’t at all mind being surrounded by people and photographing their celebrations and accomplishments, shooting such events just doesn’t fit my style of business or photography. I have, however, photographed a couple events for my church as a volunteer and I don’t at all mind helping them out every once in a while. First it was their phenomenal, impressive and moving Christmas service back in December. Then they asked me to come rub elbows with the famous Erik Estrada and mayor of Morgantown. Pretty cool, eh?

So I spent the later part of last Friday evening watching the Christian, based-on-a-true-story movie “Finding Faith” and photographing a very energetic, very smiley Erik Estrada. For those of you who don’t know Erik, he was one of the stars of the very successful TV series “CHiP’s” in the late 70s and early 80s. Apparently people like my mother-in-law thought he was quite dreamy and many women had his picture on their walls. Here’s a visual…

Now many moons later, he’s joined the Safe Surfin’ Foundation & Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces around the country to help protect children from online sexual predators. He spoke at the end of the movie showing at the church event and I could tell immediately that he’s quite passionate about this topic and is really proud of the police officers who fight such crime in our area. I’ve never swooned over him or even seen any of his “CHiP’s” moments (and I don’t officially photograph corporate events), but it was still neat to be in his presence…

I told you, he’s a smiley guy!

Erik with the mayor of Morgantown and his wife.

Erik and Pastor Tim!

This was a typical reaction from the women in the room. 🙂

So no, I don’t officially photograph corporate events or holiday parties, but I’ll make an exception for my church…and for the opportunity to rub elbows with a celeb. 🙂