Well now here’s a post that would’ve been way more relevant six months ago! But at least the event described here happened within this calendar year. That makes it all okay. Right?

As you may remember, we (or rather, I) photographed the first annual Santa Cruz NEXT awards ceremony back in January 2010- you can see those photos here. On January 23, 2011, the NEXTies happened again, making this the second annual Santa Cruz NEXT awards ceremony, in case you were losing track. This time Patrick was there too, and he got fabulous photos, as you will see.

The 2011 NEXTies happened at the Top of the Ritt, and once again Timerie Gordon made it look space-age-awesome. This time around she included real live humans in her design, because she’s a genius like that. These living statues were brought to us by Santa Cruz Dance. At the start of the event, they posed on scaffolding in the lobby. Later they made their way around the venue and became part of the decor, sometimes holding still and sometimes moving very slowly. They started to seem like some other kind of lifeform, something oceanic. It was a little bit disconcerting, and totally cool.

Many tasty tidbits were offered by local vendors and served on wheels by several Santa Cruz Derby Girls. These tidbits included the teensiest brisket sliders I’ve ever seen (by SmoQe BBQ) and yummy stuff by Coastal Catering and others. Later on Dan P and The Bricks took the stage and got people to do some fancy dancing. The first time I ever saw Dan P and the Bricks was actually in front of that same building, right on the street, where they had a piano and a crowd of pleased tourists around them.

You can read more about the 2011 NEXTies and who was honored there in this article.

On a photographic note: one of my favorite photos that I’ve ever taken is the 12th one down in this post. There’s something so incredibly strange about it. I think I’ve had dreams that looked like that photo and the one after it. Recurring, perplexing, Lynchian dreams. Also, the final photo, the view of Pacific Avenue from the Top of the Ritt, is definitely one of my favorite photos by Patrick.

Overall, I think we did pretty well considering how dark it was in there (low lighting plus no nearby walls plus dark ceilings equals flash frustration!) And now our did-pretty-well-ness is preserved forever on this blog, which means It Officially Happened. Hooray!

I knew that the first annual Santa Cruz NEXT award ceremony, aka the NEXTies, would be a big, fun party. But I wasn’t expecting the venue to be quite so fabulously decked out. Walking into that room felt like boarding some kind of super-hip spaceship, and I was astounded by what they were able to create from blank industrial space. I don’t think my photos really do it justice, but you’ll get the idea. All of this amazing design work was done by Nielsen Architects, a talented Santa Cruz group that includes Timerie Gordon, who blogged about preparing for this event with no budget and a lot of hard labor. The light fixtures were made from wine barrels and were constructed by artist Maurice Connolly. And the projected light installations were crafted by people from Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) at UCSC.

I shot this event alone, as Patrick was working late hours preparing for our appearance at the rapidly approaching Santa Cruz Bridal Expo. Usually at an event like this, one of us will use a flash and the other one will shoot with available light only. As the sole photographer, I came prepared to switch back and forth between those two modes of shooting. But when I saw how creative the venue lighting was, and how successfully the right mood had been conjured by the designers, I couldn’t bear to ruin it with bright flashes. I used available light only for most of the night, which meant shooting at maximum ISO and letting the shutter drag for the wide-angle shots.

Since that night, I’ve learned a few new techniques that will allow me to use a flash without destroying the ambiance of a room. I’m still working on those techniques. I have a very strong natural inclination towards sticking with available light because I love the sense of reality it lends to a photograph. But there were plenty of things I couldn’t get good photos of with the light that was there, such as the delicious food offered by various local gourmet vendors. (Of which I only sampled a tiny bit, because of the danger of leaving greasy fingerprints on my lens. However, I couldn’t turn down the dessert that involved bacon tucked into strawberries.)

The award ceremony itself was easier to shoot because the winners were on stage, under spotlights. The winners (click their names to view their sites): Marina Sousa, Reyna Ruiz, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, and Danny Keith. If you want to read more about who they are and why they won, this Good Times article has great profiles and photos of the four winners. The ceremony featured video profiles of the winners created by SoWat TV, and you can view those videos in this Santa Cruz NEXT blog post.

A band called Persephone’s Bees took over after the ceremony, and they rocked. I had to leave during the break between their sets, to go home and get some sleep before the next few days of Bridal Expo prep. But what I saw and heard of Persephone’s Bees was impressive and the party seemed to be just getting started when I walked out the door.

A belated congratulations to everyone who was a part of creating this event!

On a side note, no party is really ever complete without Jeffrey Kongslie, which is why he appears at least three times in the photos below.