Part of the big “Celebrating 10 Years in Charleston” promotion at the Family Circle Cup included special appearances by John McEnroe, Jim Courier, Monica Seles, and Anna Kournikova.  Before they went on court for the “Game, Set, Rock!” event, these four celebrities stopped by a VIP dinner party to say a few words, sign autographs, and allow guests to get portraits with the champions! 

Here are a few shots from that event along with a photo showing my setup for it.  Since I was basically rushing from photographing a tennis match to shoot this, then rushing back to cover “Game, Set, Rock!”, my portable wireless lighting setup was the best solution.  I used a pair of 8-foot Bogen Manfrotto stackable lightstands, two SB-800 strobes, each powered by an SD-8a battery pack, and firing through my favorite Westcott 43” collapsible umbrellas.  I used my D3 with 24-70 f2.8 and SB-900 attached.  The SB-900 acted in commander mode only, with the remote strobes set manually to 1/8^th power.  The whole system was triggered by RadioPoppers and gave me a working aperture of f5.6 at 1/100^th.  It took my about 10 minutes to set up and do a test shot, and about 6 or 7 to tear down and get out the door when it was over!