Dining at Tolani Wine Restaurant

Last month, I kept busy by double booking some of my days. Chris and I started our day with capturing some footage for SHAPE magazine and Donna Kim, this time at Stuart Weitzman's Madison Avenue store. But after the review, I had to grab my bag and run through the rain with my assistant for the night, Rey, to hustle up to the Upper West Side for the opening of Tolani, a new wine restaurant on Amsterdam Avenue. Josie Zohny of WeRoqq PR was there to greet us in from the rain and we were honored to be some of the first to taste the food on Tolani's menu. I think a general consensus between the group agree, you must try their meatball! They have many delectable dishes on their menu and of course, great vino (wine).

Here are some photos from their Opening Night.

To check out the rest of the photos from the night, visit their gallery or their facebook fan page album!

Camera settings: It was pretty dark, limited to candle light and dim lighting so I had my aperture wide open and ISO turned way up. I went as slow as possible with my shutter speed without causing a blurry shake effect since all my shots were not locked down. I used a combination of a f/1.2 50mm prime and a f/1.4 24mm prime for wider shots. I knew I would need all the stops I could get before I even got there (past experiences) and I was right. The down side of the aperture wide open was the extremely shallow depth of field. I would've preferred some of the shots to be much flatter without sacrificing angle or distance. I had a speed light on hand, but it really took away from the beauty the ambient lighting was providing. The only thing that could've improved the shots were longer exposures but things were happening quickly and the place was packed so to lock down the camera would've been out of the question.