photographing 50-60 couples!

[Big John]

A lady I work with and her husband will be taking part in a marriage re-commitment ceremony, along with 50 or 60 other couples at her church in a few weeks. Knowing I am into photography, she wanted to know if I would be interested in setting up a spot in the church to take pictures of the couples and sell them!

Of course I said yes, fully understanding my limitations and agreed to a modest fee per couple. I am planning on scouting out the location in advance, as this will be taking place after dark to find a suitable spot at the church to set up. I am hoping to find a nice spot with an interesting background. I am figuring on using my tripod, my canon 50 mm 1.8 and my canon 420 ex for my set up. I will also have my laptop on hand to show proofs (to maybe spark some sales).

Can anyone help me with recommendations for settings? I want these to turn out very nice for the couples and be a potential tool to get some further business later on.
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[DaveG]

A lady I work with and her husband will be taking part in a marriage re-commitment ceremony, along with 50 or 60 other couples at her church in a few weeks. Knowing I am into photography, she wanted to know if I would be interested in setting up a spot in the church to take pictures of the couples and sell them!

Of course I said yes, fully understanding my limitations and agreed to a modest fee per couple. I am planning on scouting out the location in advance, as this will be taking place after dark to find a suitable spot at the church to set up. I am hoping to find a nice spot with an interesting background. I am figuring on using my tripod, my canon 50 mm 1.8 and my canon 420 ex for my set up. I will also have my laptop on hand to show proofs (to maybe spark some sales).

Can anyone help me with recommendations for settings? I want these to turn out very nice for the couples and be a potential tool to get some further business later on.
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I do some similar work to this but you've got some problems.

My typical event is a company awards banquet and after the ten year pins and cheques have been given out I do work that I refer to as "prom shots". Everyone there can get a "couples" shot, for free. At least it's free to them because it's the organizers that covers the cost of the shoot.

I get an hourly fee plus expenses. I deliver the prints to the client a few days later and they do the distribution.

Have you thought about your distribution? How do you get the shot of Mr & Mrs Smith TO Mr. and Mrs Smith? I'm not sure if the hosts want all these people stopping off at their home to pick them up over the next month.

You need to factor this into your price. Will you have an assistant to help with names? Do the people who are coming to this event know that you are offering this service & the cost? If not you are likely to get about four couples taking advantage of the shoot.

A few years ago I was asked to photograph a prom, and the enquiry was made literally the week of the dance. I told the bubble gum chewing girl on the phone that I'd be happy too, that there was a $750 fee but I'd subtract every shot I did off of that price. She was shocked and hung up. She wanted a service that cost her nothing, and I wasn't prepared to do it. These spec jobs usually will cost you money and especially if you and the guests aren't prepared.

Now many (most?) prom shooters will be using dye-sub 4x6 printers on site. They will shoot and print and then there's no distribution problem. Their sales will also increase when Betty shows Sue the print and then Sue drags her date off to get a shot too.

As to the set up I would use a monolight bounced into an umbrella. I could plug it in, and go all day if I had to. I know that you can't but you are going to have to figure out a way to take these shots with your 430 DIRECTLY over the lens. If you don't you'll get side shadow, assuming that you are shooting vertically and you use the camera's hotshoe. The results will be unacceptable.

I use a bracket (a Stroboframe Pro-T, or most recently a Stroboframe Pro-RL) and you might want to look into getting something like this. You'll also need the remote cord to attach the flash to the camera if you use a bracket.

Make sure that there is some distance (2 meters) between the subjects and the background or even with a flash over the lens, you get shadows falling behind the subjet's necks. It often looks like they have long hair, and is a lot better than side shadow, but still shouldn't be there.

Although I love my tripod I've found that doing these shots requires me to handhold the camera. My subject's are standing up - as I'd guess yours are - and since the subject's height and girth is such a variable I'd be contantly lowering and raising the tripod head as well as moving the tripod in and out! That's up to you of course.

I would try to a form of fill flash as well. If you do hand hold don't let the shutter speed fall below 1/60 of a second and I'd shoot at at least f5.6. But if the room is bright enough you can avoid flash fall off by having the flash output the same as the ambient light in the room. The flash will fill in what would otherwise be raccoon eyes, colour correct the shot and to a certain extent make the image sharper.

[tim]

With a single an on-camera flash mounted on the camera you're not going to get pro level results, and with the 50mm F1.8 you're going to need a lot of room if you want more than head and shoulders shots.

I would also recommend a strobe set a little off to the side of the camera, and up high, diffused some how. If you can't do that try bouncing your flash, but use a piece of white card to send a little light direct. I also agree with what David said and his recommendations.

[Big John]

you both make excellent points, and I thank you for your feedback. I am planning on bouncing the flash whenever possible, but barring that, I have a diffuser for my 420 ex that I can use. I can turn my camera vertical, and still have the flash bounce off the ceiling. I would put a small white card on the side for a little more fill light. I am also thinking of purchasing a sigma 28-105 F2.8-4 DG, which might help address a few of the issues regarding distance from the subject.

What do you think, is this workable?

[Jon]

You'll be pushing that poor 420EX to, and maybe beyond, its limits if you try bouncing and hope for it to also reflect off a card for more direct lighting. I really think you need more light. Maybe a couple of hot lights if you aren't ready for a second strobe.

[Mike Panic]

i've done similar events, last one was a charity dinner at a hospital done outside, under tents w 2500 people, roughly 1200 couples. i was working w/ 2 other photogs to shoot every couple w/ a vintage car. to do this effectiently and with the best results, i can share what i did and what i've learned in a shoot smarter class.

first, rent two strobes w/ stands and umbrellas - there is no two ways about this, you need them. white or silver umbrellas are also needed

im going to highly recomend that you also rent a wireless way of firing the strobes

scout the location and make it easy to get too and also make it easy for 100-120 people to line up in, shoot and exit w/out causing a problem.

setup your strobes, then use a friend to help figure out where the best place to put the couples are, meter (preferably w/ a light meter) and fire away... when you are happy, use gafers tape (comes in silver and black) to make a box on the ground that the couples will stand in.

shooting you have two real options... one is hand held. if you do this, put a piece of gafers tape on the ground where you need to stand. this is important. the other option is to use a tripod and a wireless remote... and prefocus the lens. if your box that the couple is standing in is fixed and the couples are not too drunk, this isn't a problem, especially if they will not be printed any bigger then say 5x7 or 8x10 - a little softness won't kill you. if you go w/ the wireless remote, you can actually save some time.

if you decide to shoot hand held, you MUST practice focusing... the camera will want to focus on the space between the couple, so manual focus may be required for this, or knowing how to use the focus lock on your camera.

shoot in jpg mode, if you do a custom white balance and your exposures are on point, there is no real need to shoot raw at all - you shouldn't have to do any real editing after the fact either
next, you need to focus on workflow and how you will be doing this. you will need at the very least, one assistant. that assistant needs to be at a table with a notebook and pen. their job is going to be getting the couple's name and hopefully address as well, and have that coraspond with a frame number in your camera. otherwise, you will NEVER know who's who and who wants to order reprints through you. it is also a good idea to get a description of what the bride is wearing... the groom will most likely be in black, so that is no good to you. it can help in sorting out the photos.

shoot one photo per couple, thats it.
shoot one photo per couple, thats it.

ok... so, you have a card table off to camera right, an assistant who is there w/ a notebook, good handwriting skills and knows your frame number (check w/ them often on this), you shoot and the couples will exit via camera left. once you have those few things down, you should be able to crank through all 50-60 couples in no more then an hour. the longest part will be having them fill out information w/ your assistant, and if he/she is good, then they can work somewhat in advance, no more then 2-3 people would be my suggestion, so frame numbers match up.

other tid bits. have business cards on the spot for them.. chances are, they know someone who is getting married soon or will need you for some kind of event.

consider setting up part of your website, like - yourwebsite.com/event_name/ ahead of time... and get a batch of 100-150 biz cards made up just for that event w/ that domain name on it... tell the customers that they can see digital proofs there within 48-72 hours. you can use photoshop to create a simple gallery and / or use gallery software (http://gallery.menalto.com/) to do this part for you... and then easily have your email and / or paypal buttons for reorders. if you go that route, your assistant should write the frame number that they are on the back of the card, so you can use it for referance. your assistant will need to convey to the couple not to loose the card, it is what will help idetify them

shoot one photo... its that simple. why make your life any harder. should be a standard portrait type shot w/ the two slightly facing each other, from about the waist up... unless they request full body shots. the only reason you should be shooting a 2nd one is so because someone blinked or there is a lot of eyeglass glare. if you do shoot a 2nd one, make sure your assitant knows what frame you are on.

where black dress pants and a black button down shirt, look professional and blend in. you can go as far as renting a tux, but that may be a bit overkill

if you the prints going to couples are 5x7 or 8x10, do not forget to leave extra space for cropping

[SuzyView]

I've never done the "volume" as these guys above, thank heavens. But I've been in some of these pictures due to my husband's work. I have some beautiful portraits of the two of us that we wouldn't have done otherwise because I just got my studio set up this year.

Renting is the way to go. Whatever you cannot afford, just build it into your contract to rent. You will probably not use so much equipment all the time and the storage is a killer.

There is no substitute for good studio lighting and your 420 with diffuser will only give you minimal light. I tend to want 2-3 slaves or strobes with softboxes or large reflectors if with natural light.

Lighting is the most important thing, and you don't want your subjects to be bright sharp focus, as many will be "ancient", excuse my bluntness. I appreciated the photographer who took our last pictures at a dinner last year. He put my husband right in the light and me in his shadow. I love him for it!

Watch the interaction of the people. It's so important to know which of the couple wants to be "in the light" and setting up the pose is really crucial to successful couples' photography.

My last advice, invest in the Canon 4x6 printer that you can just plug in the card and print 36 pictures for around $20. It's a bargain to give them something to order from and you will make them pay a lot for the pictures. If you have paper frames, that would even be better (like they have for Santa at the mall). If you have the choice of inexpensive frames as well, you can make a bundle. If you have an assistant to do help with posing, processing and ordering, that's a definite plus.

SuzyView
20D, 10D, EOS 3, 550 EX, and great stuff