Last night I had the opportunity to photograph an event in Los Angeles encouraging people to go out and vote. The event was at Les Deux and hosted by Brooke Burke of Dancing With The Stars fame. It was so different from a wedding, so it was nice to do something brand new. While brand new to me, everybody has seen the red carpet photos from things like the Oscars and other events. I joined in with that crowd of red carpet photographers to make sure I got my shots, but I also got to try some other stuff. My friend Jeffrey Neal came to shoot the event with me. He got to shoot inside the club while I was shooting the red carpet stuff.

It’s actually really difficult to get away from the existing aesthetic of red carpet photographs, but I just wanted to share a few things I tried to do a little differently. (No, I didn’t crawl on the ground, or climb any walls this time.)

On a more serious note, I want to encourage people to go out and cast an informed vote next week. It’s an exercise of our citizenship, honoring the freedoms in this country that we take for granted. Wars have been fought for this right, and we neglect it in this country because of our ridiculous sense of entitlement. As far as the presidential race goes, don’t vote for a candidate just because of perception. Read up, understand what each candidate stands for before voting. And don’t forget about third party candidates, i.e. Ralph Nader, Bob Barr. You’d be surprised how much more you might agree with their platforms than the Mc’bama choice.

Even if you aren’t fired up about the presidential elections, there are still tons of propositions to vote on in California. My guess is that everybody cares strongly about at least one of the issues on the ballot. So get off your lazy ass, fire up that world wide web, get educated on the issues and exercise the privilege of voting on Nov. 4.