I just finished a great gig with the Ulsan St. Andrew’s Society shooting their Burn’s Night Charity Ball. It was a hard gig and certainly full of challenges but the photos turned out great and the clients were more than happy. I would like to pass on some of the information that I learned from shooting this event.

1. Get the Gear – I can’t tell you how many people that I have talked to about gear when I get hired as this is one of the first things that pops into my balding head. “Do I have the gear to pull this off?” or “What gear does it take to pull this off?” These are some of the things that I have to consider when I am approached for a job, especially one of this magnitude.

For this job, I knew that my little flash might not cut it but I was lucky enough to be given a set of studio strobes by a good friend of mine. These were great and big enough to take care of the “Red Carpet” images. Having a couple fast lenses and noise-reducing software, meant that I didn’t have to rent anything and I could shoot at a higher ISO. This took a load off my mind.

If you don’t have the gear that is required for the job, you have to consider not taking the job or renting. Don’t just take the job and hope for the best. People sometimes don’t understand that just because you have a nice camera that you may not get the pictures that they want or need. You have to be the judge of that.

2. Dress The Part –  The Burns Night was a black-tie event and I was lucky to have a formal suit from my wedding to wear. For events like these you have to look the part and the “artist look” simply will not go over well. The reason why is that the clients wanted me to fade away and not be seen. They wanted shots of the people having a good time and not ones where the people obviously knew they were having their picture taken. A long lens and the right suit did the trick. Looking the part also says something about how professional you are and how seriously you are taking this job.

3.  Cover the Event –  When you first sit down with your clients get a run down of the day or event. I call this my battle plan and it helps with figuring out what shots the client wants and when. These shots are what you are getting paid for and the rest are just icing on the cake.  I have done a lot of event where the client simply states “just cover the event, you know best” and then turn around after and say “why didn’t you get a shot of Uncle Leroy doing a keg stand…” or something like that. You are not a mind reader and don’t pretend to be. Get a clear idea of the event and what shots they want from each part. If they don’t know what they want, get out a sheet of paper and the schedule and go over the shots that you think should be taken. If they are fine with that, get them to sign it. That way you won’t have any surprises when you show them the final shots.

4. Don’t Be a Prima Donna – The main thing to keep in mind is that if you are starting this off, as a business, you want repeat customers. Word of mouth is also something to think about. That means no matter how much of an artist you “think” you are, you are still have to cooperate with your client. They are paying you for a service and you need to realize that if you fail to provide that service, that might be the last job you will get. By being down to earth and working with the client and not against them, it will secure you more jobs in the future.

5. Get the Work Done – Thanks to the instant uploads of iPhones and whatnot, people expect the job to finish shortly after you press the shutter release. One of the biggest things that you must tell your client is how long it will take to process the images. If it is a big event and they want a lot of photos, you HAVE to let them know that it will take some time. Likewise, you have to be realistic with yourself and find a workflow that will get the job done. Creating photoshop actions to handle the routine adjustments or working with camera raw will save you a lot of time and that will pay off with your clients.

One of the best things that I found was Camera Raw’s ability to select all the photos and sync the settings. This works well if you are shooting from the same location and want everything to be the same. For example I was shooting from a fixed position for this red carpet idea that we had. So I had about 150 that needed similar adjustments. Now I handled each photo separately but if I was pressed for time I could have selected them all in bridge, hit ctrl-R. That would open them all up in a single raw box. I would then work on one to get it where I wanted to to be then select all and snyc. It will take some time but not as long as it would take going through each one. Couple that with a photoshop action for resizing and noise reduction and you can burn through a set of photos easily. However, I prefer to go through them one by one incase I need to make individual adjustments when I have the time.

 

One of things that I would suggest looking into would be purchasing Noiseware Professional. This was a life saver on many accounts. One of the problems that I have had with other programs is the fact that some how “noise reduction” meant “blur the crap out of the photo and make it look like crap” for other programs it just meant “do nothing and waste your time” However, noiseware pro does an amazing job event on the default setting. Also the “portrait” does a great job of smoothing skin and make people looking amazing.

Also, clean your sensor before the event. I take mine in a lot to the canon guy here in Ulsan. My camera is sadly a grey market one but that still only costs 10,000 won to clean the sensor and it takes like 10 minutes. This is a good excuse to have them look over the camera. I had issues with my shutter release not firing and I had that replaced for extremely cheap and I have been happy with the results. The last thing that you want to do is show up for the event and have your camera malfunction.

The last thing that I would say is to do a “dry run” That basically means test out all your gear before the event and event minutes before the event when you are set up on location. Get all of the tweaks out of the way before people start to arrive. Again, the last thing that you want is to have dead batteries or the wrong camera settings because you were out shooting birds the night before and still had those settings when the first shots have been taken.

I would just like to thank the Ulsan St. Andrew’s Society. I have never been more impressed and enjoyed working for a group than I have for this event. The committee was the most well organized and great bunch of people that I have worked with and I am more than happy to cover future events with them. They helped raise an amazing amount of money for local charities and as well put together an amazing night for all their patrons. Thank you again, gentlemen.