My first photo job for a restaurant

[motomedic23]

Saturday was my first "paid" photo assignment. A high school friend of mine was creating a new brochure for his family restaurant Hana Japan. I've been to the restaurant before, but it was a few years back at a different location. He wanted to portray an interactive and action packed dining experience.

My history: I've done some amateur landscape and limited track day and race photography. Other than that, my skills are very limited.

Equipment: Nikon D5000 with 18-55 kit lens, 35mm 1.8, and a tripod.

Challenge: Horrible lighting! There was limited lighting inside the room, and it was foggy and overcast outside. The only way we could block out the outside ambient light was with some blinds that did not totally block out the light.

Process: My friend put a "help wanted" on his facebook, and I was the one that responded. We called each other a few days before to discuss the game plan for Saturday; the day of the shoot.

We were supposed to meet morning in Berkeley at 10am. I'm normally a morning person but I haven't been getting much sleep...and I ended up oversleeping and being 15 minutes late. They pretty much used that time to set up the room for the shoot, and when I arrived, we talked about what type of scenarios he wanted to shoot.

The first was a bar shot. They serve wine and beer, but they really wanted to show off their hard alcohol. We removed and reorganized some glasses that were in the shot trying different angles. We decided that a side angle shot worked best with the lighting.

He wanted an action shot next; dealing with fire if at all possible. The problems we faced were getting the right angle, and getting enough movement in the photo but keeping it clear enough that it would be usable in the brochure. We struggled to find the perfect photo, but we got some interesting ones.

[candleman]

Images aren't showing

[motomedic23]

My favorite picture

[motomedic23]

[motomedic23]

We worked for about 6 hours taking around 500 pictures. It was a great learning experience, and one that I really enjoyed. It was harder than I thought it would've been, but I still enjoyed the challenge of creating the right shot.

If I could do it again, I would've made some changes:
1) Shoot at night when the restaurant is busy. The extra people would've given the photos more action in the background.
2) Start earlier! I didn't know how much planning is needed when working with a business. Plan! Plan! Plan!
3) Make sure my batteries are charged! My parents took my camera to Oregon three days prior, and I got my camera back the night before. I uploaded their pics, and put the battery in the charger; but i guess it didn't charge. Everything worked out fine because I charged my battery while we were planning the shoot; but I quietly felt embarrassed.

[nickbedford]

Originally Posted by motomedic23

We worked for about 6 hours taking around 500 pictures.

Wow. How many did you give them by the way?

I did something similar (not a bar though) for a university marketing project and I took around 350 shots (filling my 8gb card) in only two hours

I ended up with 200 varied shots from many different locations and "scenes" the 12 students that were modelling, acted out.

One thing I may point out with your shots (of those 3 posted):

• Look at your images' contrast and post processing. Even a simple higher contrast can make them pop. Shooting RAW makes this a lot better quality. Actually, the last two images you posted are pretty good in that respect.
• Watch your angles. A small off angle isn't too bad but the 45 degree thing that some photographers I know do is actually off putting. I don't want to tilt my head to see the photo how it should have been.

Sounds like you had fun anyway

[motomedic23]

I've got this problem of not being selective. I have a hard time sorting through the pictures and throwing away pictures. I gave them around 300 total, all unprocessed.

I took jpeg and Raw, and I told them that I would be able to give them the raw for the pictures that they wanted.

I've never really processed any photos because I havent learned how to use photoshop properly.

[nickbedford]

Originally Posted by motomedic23

I took jpeg and Raw, and I told them that I would be able to give them the raw for the pictures that they wanted.

I hate to say this, but prepare to get your butt kicked by DPS

You never give away RAWs. They're not the photographer, you are. It's up to you to decided how you want to develop the images. For a commercial / business job you usually don't go beyond colour correction and contrast (to name the most common settings) unless they specific need a certain processing method (such as black and white) or you are also contracted to do post processing on the image (such as removing backgrounds or whatever).

You develop the RAWs then give them the JPEG versions.

[motomedic23]

I always welcome getting some criticism

I do not have the skills to process photo's professionally enough for this job. I'll be taking a digital photo and manipulation class next semester to help me out.

Here are my thoughts on this project: I took the photos for my buddy, and he has another person thats processing/editing the photos to actually put them in the brochure. Theres no way I would have been able to turn around the work as quickly as it was needed - I have finals this week.

Anyways, I need to get some more practice with processing. I'll get there soon enough

[Biomech]

One thing I learnt shooting in a church and lights-out dancefloor over the weekend - Flash is king! You always know where the off button is, but using flash has really helped in situations like that