Steve Maller Photography

I am excited to announce that I’m going to be moving to a new studio space over the next month. I found a delightful space not far from my current one, and of course not far from home, either. I’ll have more details as my move-in date approaches.

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Today we celebrated the bar mitzvah of our good friend Max. We have been close to his family ever since his older brother and my son Max attended middle school together. Max F. is a brilliant, funny and interesting young man. He struggles with Tourette’s Syndrome, and his parents were understandably concerned about whether having a big, public event like this would be the right thing. But it was quite clear from early in the morning that not only was Max emotionally ready for it, but he was terrifically well-prepared. He chanted from the Torah beautifully, and then delivered what I think was one of the most touching commentaries I’ve ever heard, especially coming from a 13-year-old. He spoke eloquently about his struggle with Tourette’s, and showed heartfelt appreciation not only to his parents and brother, but to the network of caregivers who have been such a big part of his life. And once the bar mitzvah ceremony came to its rousing conclusion, the party began. And once again, Max was wonderful and we all had a terrific time. Mazel tov and “yasher koach” to Max and his family!

My eldest son Max is, for the second time this school year, performing in a stage production at Burlingame High School. This semester it’s the Sondheim musical “Into The Woods”, and Max is cast as The Narrator. We’re all looking forward to their big opening, which is in just a couple weeks. The cast, crew and everybody else are working long hours, but they are having a great time.I went into school today and set up a little headshot factory so the kids would have consistent, fresh and “professional” photos. After all, I guess I qualify as a professional now.Break a leg, Max!

When I am working a corporate event gig, I’m a one man band. Here you see what I look like at one of these things. I’m carrying four Canon lenses (16-35 2.8L, 24-70 2.8L, 50 1.4, and 70-200 2.8 L IS), a Canon flash, a power pack for the flash, two camera bodies, extra batteries, about 30gb of  flash cards, a portable hard drive for downloading images, and about 20lb of extra weight just in case a strong breeze comes along and threatens to knock me over.

Today’s event was the Game Developers Conference 2008 in San Francisco.

Cisco Systems’ annual “Networkers at Cisco LIVE!” event brings over 10,000 technical wizards together in one place to learn, network and celebrate the very best in leading edge networking science and products. And Cisco has posted several of my photographs on their corporate communications website, graciously “giving credit where credit is due.”

And boy, do they throw a heck of a party. I shot this photo of KISS at their 2007 conference. What a thrill that was!

Check me out at http://newsroom.cisco.com/

So this is the most random thing to happen to me in a while.

I’m working this week for Yahoo! at the AT&T Pro-Am at Pebble Beach. I was taking a walk between events after the day’s golf round, and was admiring the view across the 18th fairway when I saw a commotion out of my peripheral vision. And who should come upon me but several Elvis impersonators. Naturally I insisted on handing one of them my camera and hoping for the best. I dare say it came out rather nicely, don’t you think?

One of my favorite corporate events is the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. It’s not that I like golf (I really don’t like golf) or that I’m partial to Pebble Beach (although there are few prettier places around). I really like working with the Event Marketing team at Yahoo!. They know how to throw a party that is both amazingly entertaining as well as very educational. I always enjoy all the interesting guests they have, and I inevitably learn a lot from them.

So here I am this week, pretending that men in plaid pants and very colorful socks are the norm. And I am enjoying the beautiful vistas and the great team here.