Oscar Einzig was named as the official photographer for the exhibit portion of Oracle OpenWorld 2008 in San Francisco at the Moscone Center. In addition, we were honored to be part of a team of 9 photographers contracted by Hartmann Studios to cover all aspects of the entire show, including a multi-acre 42,000 attendee client party at Treasure Island complete with celebrities including Elvis Costello, Seal and Alan Jackson. I had an opportunity to talk with Seal at some length about his passion for photography and what constitutes a photographic image. It was exciting for me to learn that he has photographed around the globe in-between concert tours.
It was an interesting change because, for once, we were the new kids on the block, since all of the other photographers had shot previous Oracle OpenWorld shows and we had not. We were able to bring stylistic diversity, imagination and a flurry of photojournalistic images to the table. The artistic director, Tim Steele, put no constraints on creative imagery and we were able to anticipate some of the needs of our client ahead of time because of our wealth of previous experience at large shows in related industries. We are pleased that thirty photos have already been selected for publication since the show’s closing a few weeks ago.
Our hats are off to Hartmann studios for having created an enormously sophisticated infrastructure of digital signage, exhibit structures and all decorations including furniture and exquisite foliage as well as sophisticated concert staging for the Treasure Island extravaganza.
We have been informed that we will be working on the Oracle OpenWorld 2009.
Robert N. Shiverts
Director of Photography