Group photography

[dlade]

Hi!

I've been asked to take pictures of a group of around 40 people this weekend. The person who has asked me has been very good about not putting any pressure on me (even though he has said that it's a rare opportunity to have them all together), but I feel that I want to do as good a job as possible with this. (It's the first time I've actually been asked to take pictures of something as opposed to just turning up with the camera anyway.)

The event is taking place outdoors and this being London I expect it will be a cloudy day. I'll have approximately an hour to look around the place and try to find a good spot, although I suspect that the group themselves will have ideas on this.

Does anyone have any advice for things to do and not to do?

[Saralonde]

Do you have a wide angle lens? It might be interesting to take it from a different angle, such as getting above the group and having them look up into the camera.

[whitemug]

some tips i can share are:

take multiple shots of the group. setting-up your camera for rapid shots is best. you never know if someone blinked in one of your photos, and you just want to play the percentages here to make sure that you have at least 1 good shot.

have your group set themselves up in layers. benefits of this include allowing you to get up to them as close as possible, and ensuring correct DOF. if you have them all form, say, two lines, you'd have to back up a good distance to make sure that you don't (gulp!) cut off the people at the ends. and also, once the photo comes out, and you print it, the individual faces will still be recognizable.

if the personality of the group allows it, have an informal shot. it can be as simple as getting them to hug each other - a lighter way of saying get compressed.

[Darren Rowse]

here are a few tips I wrote months back on group photography (http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/how-to-take-great-group-photos/) - hope something in it is helpful

[Diralph]

I would agree with the person who said to get up high and have everyone raise their heads to look up at the camera... this takes care of double chins! Another good idea for taking photos of a large group is to get someone to say something to someone else in the bunch that will illicit a funny response from the group as they all look at the two involved in the conversation. We did this at a studio I worked at a few years back and it was the BEST photo of the day. It turned out that two of the participants had just become engaged and supposedly no one knew... so when someone asked about it during the photo session, all faces turned toward this couple and the looks were ALL spontaneous and PERFECTLY amazing! This was also a group of about 40. Get them to reminisce about something that will get a response from all. God Speed!
Diana

[Nicole]

This seems like a great place to point out this article I read a while back about how many pictures you need to take to get "Blink-Free" group photos (http://www.livescience.com/othernews/061218_mm_picture_perfect.html). It was actually a study done in Australia, but it only gives the formula for less than 20 people (it says with 20 people you need to take about 7 shots). But... there's always the possibility of using Microsoft's new Groupshot software (http://research.microsoft.com/projects/groupshot/) to edit the photo to make sure nobody is blinking :p What was the question again? ;)

[dlade]

Hey, thanks for all your suggestions. And especially, thanks for linking to that article here on DPS. I must have read it months ago when you first posted it, but didn't remember it now. Very useful stuff. The shoot is tomorrow and while I'm still scared, I'm now also looking forward to it to see what angles the location and group will provide. :)

[Lani_D]

good luck with your shoot. make sure you post the pics so we can see how you went!:)

[dlade]

Hi!

The shoot happened today, and I'm quite pleased with the results. I hope the rowing club is too. ;)

They asked me for a classic shot, so that would be this one:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlade/394598205/"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/125/394598205_899cce06ef.jpg?v=0"></a>

But I also found a spot where I could take pictures from above:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlade/394599966/">
<img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/144/394599966_d934bfe2f0.jpg?v=0"></a>
(The laughter comes from "Ok, now everybody hug each other! -Hey, what kind of website is this going up on really?")

Finally, my absolute favourite shot of the day was from just before everyone was ready. In this one, every single person is doing something different and it just sums up the day for me. I took a total of 68 pictures, and 7 came out without someone blinking, sneezing, looking away or crouching down...

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlade/394597104/"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/159/394597104_e20ba38af0.jpg?v=0"></a>

Thanks for all the advice, it really helped.

[Saralonde]

They came out really well. My favorite is the second, probably because they are all genuinely laughing. Good job!

[acheick]

This reminds me of when I was in Brownies (pre-Girl Scouts). We were getting our troop picture when the photographer was having a difficult time getting everyone not to blink, turn to the other girl and talk, etc. So he said, "go ahead, all of you get your itching and talking out of the way." So we did and he took a shot of it. It was a classic and I still have it next to the "professional" group shot. Good idea. I may try that at the wedding this weekend. Thanks for the reminder.