This weekend, I will be in charge of photographing all the guest arriving for the 2^nd Lower Bucks Chamber Ball.  The theme this year is “The Great Gatsby”.    Guests arriving early will be escorted to an area where their photographs will be taken in their Gatsby (or not) attire.

To new photographers who are entering the world of event photography, many “newbies” find it all encompassing after attending their first event.  I say this because it has taken me years to perfect and fine tune the amount of equipment and staff needed to photograph a large event such as a convention, a corporate event or anything other than a wedding.  Each job has it own set of equipment lists that span into pages.

Usually, when new photographers are hired to photograph an event, they undoubtedly never bring all the essentials.  So, when planning tomorrow’s equipment last, I thought it would make a great blog post to give you a typical scenario of the massive amount of equipment that goes along with what when set up correctly, looks easy as pie… (HA!)

First of all, lets start with the basics.  Every professional photographer needs liability insurance.  You never know when someone could get hurt in and around your equipment.  It also guards against equipment theft…. Which often happens at events.  Get prices from various companies.  Many times, the venue will ask for a “certificate of insurance” from all the incoming vendors that day.

Moving on, we have the camera list.  You should have your main camera with at least one if not two back ups.  At least 3 lenses.  A light meter.  Several flashes.  A mountain of compact flash cards.

Lighting for the event starts with a decision.  Do I bring the studio strobes or can I use my portable Canon Speedlites ?  This year, I have chosen to use the Canon Speedlites  because they are so easy to bring in and out of the venue.    Since I will be making a “make-shift” studio, I will bring a set of studio umbrellas and light stands.

The background that the invited guests will be up against will be two vertical banners with type.  Normally, the client provides a “Step and Repeat” background which is about 8-9 foot wide and goes from ceiling to floor.  In this case, I have to bring a background to put behind their two vertical background because you don’t want to see the junk between the two vertical banners.  So, naturally, that is another bag with a background and of course a huge background stand.

In a separate case, there will be a lap top computer, 2 card readers and a portable hard drive.  (In the car will be a back up lap top computer.)

Rounding out the list, there will be two Sony Snap Lab printers to print onsite.  These expensive puppies will be cranking out photographs at about 5 per minute.  Don’t forget that we have to bring the boxes of very expensive paper and ink to insert into the printers.  White folios are also brought so that we can insert them making them look oh so pretty.  (About 400)

Lastly, staff…..

One photographer (me)

One person on crowd control and lines

One person posing the couples

One person running the printers & computers

Two volunteers to insert the images in the folios and display on table.

My staff will be four (includes me) with the Chamber having two volunteers to help with the final product.

Just writing this list, I think I need to take a breather!  Whew… sounds a little bit overwhelming if you have never done something like this.  Trust me, I’ve done this so many of these events, that I have it down to a science.  The key to everything is the following:

Know your gear.

Have backup- and then more backup

Arrive way early

Have help.

If something goes wrong, which it always does (something may break), remain calm and go to plan B.

Black and white or color

People frequently ask me if I miss the old darkroom days.  I do not miss the smell of chemicals, stained fingertips, spotty clothing and bottles of chemicals under every counter.

When I got my first job as a photographer for a weekly paper, the deadline for prints was Monday morning.  So, every Sunday, I would develop my film (Black and white of course.), hang it up in the bathroom to dry by noon or so.  Then, in the evening, I would choose the images that I would submit to the editor.  It was then, that the real work began.  I had no official darkroom.  In a back hallway of my home, I would hang a dark out curtain, set up trays with developer, stop bath, fixer and then water.  Set up my enlarger and go to work.

All of this work did not begin of course until I got my young toddlers off to bed.  (Usually around 9 p.m.)  With the radio usually tuned into a talk show, I began my night of printing a variety of assignments from the week.  With each photo assignment, the editor wanted up to five images to choose from.  If I was lucky, he would choose a few since my pay was based on the amount of images that went in the paper.  Frankly, I was making pennies.

After being up for hours printing, I would wash the prints in the bath tub and place them on a screen to dry.  Every Monday morning, my husband woke up to screened trays of prints scattered around the house drying.  Me, I was up early to get the kids off to pre-school with maybe 2-3 hours sleep.  Everything had to be broke down and put away before morning so we could walk in the hallway.  Pretty nuts when you think about it now.

What I do miss, however, is the beauty of a fine black and white print.  To me, black and white stops time.  One’s eye doesn’t wonder about color, it just looks at the intensity of the print.  I struggle all the time about turning my portraits into black and white because I wonder if the client will appreciate the look.  Kinda like wine, a black and white gets better with age!

Now, with computers, the ability to change an image into black and white is fairly easy.  There are a ton of plug-ins that you can buy that you can manipulate an image.  One of my favorites is Alien Skin Software  (www.alienskin.com)   Being in love with vintage black and whites, there are plenty of selections to choose from which give you a variety of contrasts.  In particular, there is one called “Daguerreotype”.  If you are not familiar with this, a Daguerreotype photograph was first used around 1839 with light on a silver covered copper plate.  There was only one made per image.  If you are lucky to see one at a flea market that isn’t beat up, you should grab it.  It essentially looks like it is printed on glass.  The actually picture itself, looks a bit scratchy.

With the Alien Skin Software, you can achieve this same look.  The only thrill of the darkroom was seeing the print come to life on the paper.  Pretty much gone now, it’s all done with computers unless you yourself want to set up your own dark room.  Tell me what you think!  Color vs. Black and white?

Deserted on Christmas eve.

First, let me apologize for not keeping this blog more up to date.  Life happens, snow happens and business happens.  Although the early winter months are predominately slower than the spring months, I use this time to re-evaluate what has worked in the previous year and what has not worked.  I change out marketing ideas, take courses to keep me fresh and work on special projects. 

Being burned out in one’s business is common.  The fall is a typical time when I have to turn down pretty much every invite.  The holiday push starts right after Labor Day and continues right up until Christmas eve.  It wasn’t until a few years ago that I had to put an early cut off date for ordering prints.  Otherwise, the madness would continue for those procrastinators. Seven day work weeks are common for about 12 weeks. 

When January rolls around, plans begin for me to find ways to keep motivated.  I am a believer that an artist needs to re-fuel. Whether it’s taking a class, scheduling a photo field trip or just doing something different entirely.  After shooting portraits all year, I hardly ever take the time to re-fuel and do the fun photography stuff. 

This past Christmas eve, I had the wonderful opportunity to go out to dinner at a restaurant located on the boardwalk at Asbury Park.  Arriving a little after 4 p.m., I wanted to enjoy the sun setting, take a walk, enjoy a dinner and head home to catch church.  Before we left, my husband asked if I was bringing a camera.  Knowing that may have been a hot question, he didn’t wait for an answer.  I am so burned out by Christmas not only from photography, but from labs, clients, retouching, packaging, deadlines, and last minute orders.  Throw into the mix holiday shopping, cooking, cleaning, decorating, the thought of taking my first free night off in December, taking “fun” photographs was last thing on my mind.  Gathering my coat, I grabbed a camera and one lens.

During our pre-dinner walk along the boardwalk, the wind was brutal.  The temp was less than 20 degrees.  The boardwalk had a few brave soles who enjoyed the ocean air on a December night. I saw no photo opportunities in my eyes at that time.  After dinner, we exited the restaurant and the temp outside felt like it had dipped to a whole new level.  Perhaps it was the ocean breeze that added the chill, but the boardwalk was now totally empty.  It was kinda sad on some level to see an entire boardwalk empty at 6:00 p.m. on Christmas eve.  As I exited the restaurant, the lights from the old casino (which was turned into a throughway) glowed like it was asking for attention. This spot was the place to be 75 years ago.  It’s “heyday” was over.  Sure, there are summer beach crowds, but right now, there was nobody.  Asbury Park, once the most sought after beaches in Jersey is trying to come back.  I felt the combination of the light inside the abandoned casino/throughway, the night sky and the eerie feeling of desertion deserved to be photographed.

My camera was the Canon 5D Mark III

My exposure was 1/50^th second at F 4.0

My ISO was 6400

My exposure compensation was +1

Lens choice was 16-35mm 2.8