Quality and Quantity (Part 2)

This is a follow-up post to yesterday’s, where I discussed (and showed) the lighting setup I used for a recent photoshoot that required me to take individual portraits of 50 kids in 5 hours recently (so if you haven’t read that, why not do so now?). Today I talk about the management side of the shoot, specifically dealing with issues that arise in a shoot like this with a large quantity of subjects in a short time and, in keeping with the title of this couple of posts, how to manage it without sacrificing quality of the photography.

The single most important thing for me to achieve in terms of the management of this shoot was to keep the subjects comfortable and relaxed – that would make for much better photographs, because it would mean happier subjects.  Key to this was me being able to interact with them for as much time as possible (bearing in mind that mathematics dictated I had an average of 6 minutes per child to get the shots I needed).

I had the assistance of two people familiar with all of the children who organized who came in to the “studio” next, and we agreed that bringing in the kids two at a time was a good way to work things.  It would ensure each had a friend or a sibling in the room which would hopefully keep them more relaxed, and one could watch as the other was photographed and vice versa.  For those subjects that were a little more unsure about the whole thing I was also able to give the friend the job of trying to make them laugh – something which usually got a giggle out of both.

Because I was photographing so many subjects, and would need to be able to show the right photos to the right people (i.e. their parents) later, I needed to keep track of who was who in each photograph.  I decided to photograph each subject’s name before I photographed them.  Initially I did this by writing their name on a piece of paper and photographing it on the desk behind me, but quickly changed to giving the children the piece of paper to hold.  This actually proved to be a really good idea for three reasons.  First, it got that “first photograph” out of the way, and for many kids they instantly relaxed when they realised that maybe this wasn’t all that scary.  Secondly, it gave me a free test shot – I could quickly check that the lighting was looking ok still, and so ensured that I didn’t go through the entire shoot of that child only to realize near the end that, for instance, one of the lights wasn’t firing due to depleted batteries. Thirdly, in a few cases those “mugshot” style photos of the kids holding their own name actually ended up having potential for using as alternative-style portraits, and may yet get shown to the parents as one of the set of images.

If you’re wondering about the photo above, it was taken during a break in proceedings and features my niece’s new “dog”, who I decided to photograph for her.  In keeping with the procedure I was using, I first asked her what his name was – I don’t think she had thought about this too much in advance, but responded that he was called John.  So I wrote down his name and took the mugshot you see above.  Happy with that, and with John relaxing a little, I was then able to get the following portrait, which I think you’ll agree is very natural…

That fun with John over, it was time to resume the shoot and it was around about then that my first technical issue since setting up that morning arose.  The recycle time for my flashes began to get noticeably longer in a couple of shots one or more of the three lights failed to fire – a symptom of the 1/2 power settings that I was required to use as discussed yesterday. That made it time to change the batteries, and once I did that problem went away. It’s the first time I’ve seen the use of a portable battery pack for my flashes – I guess I haven’t done as long a photoshoot entirely lit by flash before.

The day actually ran very smoothly and I was wrapped up with all photos finished well ahead of schedule. The photos are looking good and hopefully the parents of the kids involved will be happy with them.  Although not one of the officially-scheduled subjects for the shoot, my godson Samuel was observing for much of the day and at another break in proceedings did make it on to the set to show off his hand-clapping abilities, and gave me one of my favourite photographs of him (and an excuse for him to make his sixth appearance on the blog).