Corporate Event Photography · San Francisco
61 floors above San Francisco. The Transamerica Pyramid, the Bay, and the Marin headlands just visible through the haze.
The Ohana Floor sits at the top of Salesforce Tower, 61 floors above San Francisco. On a clear evening, the view stretches past the Bay to the Marin headlands. On a foggy one, the city disappears beneath you. Either way, it's not a room you forget.
I was there to photograph an executive dinner hosted at the Ohana Kitchen — a private gathering of technology leaders that combined a multi-course meal, a live pianist, and the kind of candid conversation that happens when serious people finally step away from their desks. My job was to document all of it without getting in the way of any of it.
The Room Before Anyone Arrives
The Ohana Kitchen before guests arrived. The plant wall, the piano, the mosaic dining table — it photographs itself.
I always arrive early. The hour before guests walk in is some of the most useful time of a shoot — the room is still, the light is consistent, and there's no pressure. You can work methodically: wide establishing shots, medium angles, close-in details.
The Ohana Kitchen is a well-designed space. A living plant wall anchors one end of the room. A grand piano sits in the corner. The dining table — long, custom-built, with a blue mosaic inlay running down the center — had been set with folded linen napkins in deep plum, crystal glassware, and printed menu cards for each place setting. Floor-to-ceiling windows wrapped the other side of the room, the entire San Francisco skyline framed behind every seat.
The Ohana Kitchen menu — November 2, 2023.
Cocktail Hour: Working the Room
My approach during a cocktail hour is to stay on the edges and move slowly. You're not directing anything — you're reading the room, watching for the moments that are about to happen. A laugh that's building. Two people leaning in. A group that's getting comfortable with each other. The best frames from this phase of an event look unstaged because they are.
The living plant wall gave me a consistent, clean backdrop for most of the standing shots. The windows did the rest. When the background handles itself, you can concentrate entirely on the people.
The Transamerica Pyramid over their shoulders. It's the kind of backdrop that makes a portrait feel effortless.
When you're 61 floors up with floor-to-ceiling glass, every portrait has San Francisco in it. The Transamerica Pyramid, the Bay Bridge, the hills behind Oakland — it all lands in the frame without asking. You just have to position your subject right and let the city do the work.
The Food
Passed appetizers from the Ohana Kitchen. You have about five seconds before a tray moves on.
Food photography at events requires speed. A passed tray comes by once, maybe twice. You need to see it coming, get positioned, and get the shot before it's gone. The Ohana Kitchen's catering was clean, well-plated, and worth the frame — golden-fried bites garnished with cilantro and sauce, presented on white platters against the marble surface of the bar.
These images matter beyond the event recap. Catering teams and venues use them in their own marketing. If you're a corporate event planner, food photography is a deliverable your vendors will thank you for.
Dinner: Low Light, Big Views
The full group. Clean, professional, everyone present. This is the image that ends up everywhere after an event.
My goal at any corporate event is to stay unobtrusive. I'm not directing the evening — I'm documenting it. The less people notice the camera, the more natural the images become. For executive-level events especially, that matters. The people in the room didn't come to be photographed. They came to connect, to eat, to be in that room for the night. My job is to capture that experience without interrupting it.
The Ohana Floor made it easy. The space is designed with intention, the light is generous, and the views do a lot of the compositional work on their own. All I had to do was show up ready and move carefully through it.