People have for a long time hired a professional photographer for social or personal occasions, but nowadays companies and businesses are also realising that hiring a professional to take photographs of their events, adds value to the event and the business. Plus, with the continuing interest in social media it makes perfect sense as a business to photograph your events to help spread the word about you, your services and products.
The problem is though that much like someone organising a social or personal occasion will have a restricted budget, so too do businesses organising events. This is why you often get an office receptionist who has a vague interest in photography or rope a friend or family member in to do it for you. The results though are never as good as a professional.
Just browsing the glossy and professional images online or in magazines, the photographers seem to make it look so easy to capture everything they need to about an event in just a few snaps. The settings look as they should; they people always look great, usually because the brightness has been controlled perfectly so that your eyes only fixate on the main object of the photograph, whether it is the people or something else important.
How do they actually achieve all this and why is it so many amateurs do not get it right?
The Gear Used By a Photographer
You will have seen professional photographer’s at one point, moving around from here to there with a plethora of different bits and pieces, and a variety of different cameras. Some even have an assistant to carry the other technical stuff that to an outsider can look intimidating and confusing.
We have all held our laughter watching a wedding photographer sweating as he tries to gather up everyone from the wedding party together in a uniform fashion so that they all fit into the shot.
We shouldn’t be too quick to laugh or make fun of professionals though because they have the responsibility of making sure that all their shots are top notch lays firmly on their shoulders. Only professional photographer knows that the right gear is what it takes to get ready.
There are 2 basic essentials that a photographer should always have – a variety of lenses and a camera mounted flash.
Getting the Most Out of the Light and Knowing When to Create Extra
Take your photographs out and have a look. Are there lots of deep shadows and red eyes? This issue here is a lighting one.
If you shine the light or flash directly at the person or subject you are photographing you will highlight all the parts you don’t want to. It will cast dark and long shadows and the demonic looking red eye.
The solution to this is to soften the glare by diffusing and bouncing it off walls and different objects, as long as it’s not people. But, if it was really that simple, everyone would do it.
What you may not know is that the colour of whichever object you bounce your flash at will be the same colour that bounces back. This means that bright walls will always give you back a great amount of bright flash, while if it’s red walls you will get back red.
The Lens
This is the thing that always makes people snigger – the variety of cameras wrapped around a photographer’s neck. You probably think they are just showing off, but they are just be prepared for all occasions and settings.
In order to get the easy shots that look different and unique but at the same time natural. This is all about using different lenses for different types of scenes, but some of these scenes do not happen all the time, so rather than swapping lenses, they just switch to the other camera they are carrying.
A wide angled lens captures closed spaces nicely, with the telephoto and more standard lens being great for candid and intimate shots. This means that the happily married couple get a nice array of photographs to choose from that show their big day in the best way.
The Details
It can be expensive to hold occasions so that you need to get as much from the photographers as possible, particularly after it has finished.
Social media is one of the best mediums to use to advertise events and to show the public who was at the event, what happened and why you were holding it in the first place. Well taken and high quality snaps can be repeatedly used, whether it is as a part of your exhibition, trading material or a permanent photo album displayed on your company’s website.
With this in mind, spending some of the designated budget for your event on a professional photographer could reap plenty of benefits with high quality photographs that capture the finer details as well as the essence of your event.
These small details of your event are not always easy to spot with an untrained eye.
Stick With a Pro or Try an Amateur Photographer?
As we are still experiencing something of an economic slump, you may want to skip hiring a professional, keep the money and give the task of photographing your event to an amateur but, keen photographer.
The only problem is though that if they do not have even a little bit of knowledge and skill and some of the right equipment, the photographs are unlikely to be to the standard you were expecting or looking for. If however, you stick with a professional event photographer you can be sure that you will get the photographs that look as professional as you want.