What’s Your Preference?

Biomech · #1 (**permalink**) 01-04-2011, 02:00 PM

Just wondering what ideas people have come up with for the following:

You're at a party taking walk-around shots of people / groups. You have a printer on site and will offer prints online after the event. How do you get the people to view and buy the pictures?

If you have a stand, they come to you and walk to the printer - job done.

But if you're walking around getting shots, and someone wants to buy the image, how do you get them to pick their image out of a set of maybe 500? You can't sit down and go through them all saying "is this the one? this one? this?"... It needs to be fast and simple. (and lets say you're using a wifi SD card to get the shots to the computer)

OsmosisStudios · #2 (**permalink**) 01-04-2011, 03:53 PM

When I did the nightclub thing, we offered web-sized images for cheap. I would shoot, write the file number down onto a business card (the front of the card was the web address) and would give that to the partygoer. They hand me a fiver.

The next day, the images to go up at web sizes (600x400, ideal for Facebook) and the client can download their image.

GTAltman · #3 (**permalink**) 01-05-2011, 02:59 AM

I'd really have to hunt this down, but there was a photographer at a HS Reunion we had. He and his assistant would be walking around, shooting pics and then printing them out. They were selling 8x10's for about $10-15 per.

Basically, he'd shoot, print and put on a couple of big trifold foam boards. If you wanted a pic he'd pull it down, put it in a small frame and away you went.

Just an idea....

Gary

Swisstony10 · #4 (**permalink**) 01-05-2011, 09:33 PM

I do posed formals at events, shooting with a backdrop and lights, tethered to a laptop with an extra monitor attached. I generally do 2 or 3 shots - a close-up, a 3/4, and a full length, and once I've done the shots, the couple get to go and have a quick look through them on the laptop (operated by my faithful assistant), and then they get to choose and buy prints straight away. I rent a decent dye-sub printer, usually doing 6x9 (I could do 10x8, but then you have to take the crop into account when you compose the shot and it's an extra thing for my assistant to have to think about). My assistant takes the money and hands them the prints - and the amount of time it takes me to pose and shoot each couple is deliberately as long as it takes for the prints to come out, to make things smooth. Also, taking a little bit of time with the posing makes people feel like they're getting their money's worth.

I usually only operate that for the first few hours of an event, then I break everything down, and do walkaround pictures, if the people holding the event have asked for it, and put the pictures, along with the formals that I took, on a web gallery that attendees can look at and order more prints from. I have cards printed up ahead of the event with the URL of the gallery and the password on it, along with my contact details and stuff, that I hand out and leave on tables.

As an example, I'm doing a reasonably big event at the end of this month - around 500 guests for a dinner/dance award ceremony. I'll be doing the posed formals up until the end of the dinner, at which point my assistant will break it all down while I cover the awards part of the evening, and then if it looks like I'll get any saleable shots, I'll spend some time doing walkaround shots. With a bit of luck, I'll be at home with the pictures all uploading to the gallery by midnight.

My main reason for only doing the posed formals early on the event, is so that I don't have to try to pose drunk people who can barely stand staggering up and saying "There's 47 of us, can you do a group in front of your 9-foot-wide backdrop? Will that work? Oh go on, it'll be FINE!", and so that my assistant doesn't have to contend with similarly drunk people hovering around the monitor saying "What about the first one? No, I look awful. Let me see the second one? Oh, that's horrid too. What about the first one again? I don't like that one. Can I see the first one? Oh, that IS the first one. Well, what about the first one?" etc..

Covering events might be lucrative, but it still doesn't pay well enough for us to have to bother dealing with really drunk people if there's any way we can avoid it.

zona5101 · #5 (**permalink**) 01-05-2011, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swisstony10

My main reason for only doing the posed formals early on the event, is so that I don't have to try to pose drunk people who can barely stand staggering up and saying "There's 47 of us, can you do a group in front of your 9-foot-wide backdrop? Will that work? Oh go on, it'll be FINE!", and so that my assistant doesn't have to contend with similarly drunk people hovering around the monitor saying "What about the first one? No, I look awful. Let me see the second one? Oh, that's horrid too. What about the first one again? I don't like that one. Can I see the first one? Oh, that IS the first one. Well, what about the first one?" etc..

this is great!