Making the Best of Event Photography
[by Jenna Close]
I will fully admit that events are far from my favorite type of thing to shoot. It seems that the lighting is always difficult, the days are always long and the settings less than majestic. That said, there are benefits to event photography that can be used to your advantage. Often it is a great way to meet and interact with those who make the marketing decisions for large corporations. If you play your cards right, these people may hire you to fill the commercial photography needs of the company in the future. It can also be an excellent way to practice shooting portraits on the fly with minimal lighting set-ups.
Two things have really stuck with me from my experiences with event photography: one, make sure you charge enough. Many estimates for events seem to be priced by the hour, so make sure you set your hourly rate high enough to make it worthwhile. Don’t forget about post-production charges if you intend on doing any. If you need to, add this labor into your hourly rate. Two: wear comfortable shoes. Really. Conference halls are large and you will be running around quite a bit. (I once chose fashion over function and had sore feet for days after.)
Jenna Close, along with partner Jon Held, run P2 Photography. They specialize in imagery for the alternative energy market. You can find Jenna at www.p2photography.net.
2 Responses to 'Making the Best of Event Photography'
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You guys are on an event photography roll of late. Our studio specializes in events and we’ve been doing it for ten years now. One of the things we find that’s really great about events is the unpredictability. This forces you to be adaptable, flexible and able to handle a variety of types of situations on the fly – all excellent skills no matter what other types of photography you may be moving into. Thanks for the post!
Nice post! I agreed with you at 100%. I charge hourly too with a minimum of 3 hours and also, I charge post production fee with a minimum of 2 hours. Never received any complaints.
Thanks for sharing,
Frederic