Rangefinder Magazine
June 2006

Champagne Shootout  
 

Images made at WPPI’s first annual Champagne Shootout (clockwise from upper left): Bambi Cantrell, Angela Carson, Mike Colón, Tony Corbell

On Sunday evening, April 9, over 1000 WPPI attendees joined four of WPPI’s top photographers to watch them create images from start to finish. Sponsored by Pictage, David Maheu, the MAC Group and Pantone, this was the first shootout-style event WPPI has ever done. The photographers were Angela Carson, Tony Corbell, Mike Colón and Bambi Cantrell. Each of the photographers occupied a corner of the massive Bally’s Event Center and were outfitted with four matching sets of Profoto studio strobes, light modifiers and reflectors. Each of the pho- tographers was also outfitted with a mic and a separate sound system so the attendees at their station could hear the rationale for every creative decision the photographers made.

The audience could (and did) yell out questions, which the photographers answered affably. As the images were made, they were projected onto the large screens adjacent to the shooting setup so all could see.

Although billed as “the champagne shootout,” no champagne was to be found anywhere. Instead, ice cream sundaes smoth- ered in chocolate or butterscotch sauce were offered. We ended up serving over 900 sundaes! All in all, it was a successful event, and a good time was had by all.

The next morning, all the images were on display at the Pan- tone booth, having been printed the night before on Epson 4800 printers using Pantone inks.