What Will The Event Photographs Be Used For?

This is without doubt the most crucial part of an event photography brief. There is often a specific reason for the event photographs. Letting me know what that reason is will hugely increase the chances of you getting great photos. There are sometimes secondary reasons for the photos, so it’s good to let me know that too, but definitely rank the reasons in order of importance.

Asking For An Event Photography brief

When booking in an event to photograph, I always ask how the photos will be used. A recent example was a conference I photographed at Excel London. The client primarily wanted photos for social media, mainly Twitter and Instagram, but also to put on their own app feed during the conference. From this I knew I needed not only to get great photos that would work well on those platforms, but also get them to them quickly and in the format they needed to get them online easily.
A secondary reason for the event photos was a record of the conference that would be used in internal correspondence and newsletters as well as for their photo library. As a result, when I had got a good load of shots to them to use immediately, I was able to spend a bit of time documenting the event thoroughly.

A Good Event Photography Brief Can Sometimes Be No Brief At All

I often find that just knowing the way the event photographs will be used can be enough of a brief to get the photographs my client wants. Sometimes being over briefed can restrict the way I shoot. For example I might approach photographing the event from a completely different angle if I have the freedom to do that. This can mean much more interesting shots with loads of energy as I will be following the feel and atmosphere of the event. Whereas if I have a specific brief I will always follow that.
Often the confidence to let your photographer shoot the event the way they see it comes from having worked together regularly.
I’ve photographed the Effie Awards Judging Panel a few times. The photographs I’ve shot have changed hugely as the client felt more confident to let me photograph the event as I saw it. As a result, the feedback from not only the client, but also many people from the company I was shooting for has been excellent.

Conditions At The Event

As a London Event Photographer I’ve shot events at a huge range of venues across the city, such as the ExCel London, the Hilton Park Lane, and even the Houses of Parliament. So it’s likely I will have an idea of the conditions I will be shooting with at the venue where you are holding your event. However, it’s also possible you will have exhibitor stands or some kind of performance or stage that will be exclusive to your event. It’s a good idea to let me know anything like that so I can be totally prepared for your event. This can sometimes mean me bringing specialist equipment, or might mean I will ring the venue to check if I can have access to specific areas to have a particular view.

Where And When I’m Needed

At lots of events I photograph there will be times when there will be a particular shot needed or a specific person photographed. For instance if awards are being given or a speech. It’s very important I know the rough timings and location of those shots so I can prepare and be in the right place at the right time with the right photographic equipment.

What Not To Photograph

This is a slightly odd one, but comes up surprisingly regularly. Sometimes there are things that my client doesn’t want photographed. This can be particular people who have requested not to be included in any photos or more often it can be a part of the event that is just of no interest to the client. For instance I often spend time photographing audience reactions to awards or speeches. Occasionally a client will say that while those shots are great, they just have no use for them. As a result, I can use my time and energy photographing what they do want.

The Best Event Photography Brief

Hopefully the information above will be helpful when putting together a brief for me or another photographer at your event. There are many other factors at an event, but I’ve specifically kept it to what is relevant to me as a photographer for the reasons I made above about not over briefing. If you’re interested in reading more about my work you might like this page about my conference photography.
If you have any questions or want to talk to me about a particular event, please get in touch through my contact page or by email at neil@neilwalker.com or by phone on 020 3633 5512.

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Looking for the Light

I’ve talked about looking for the light before and it will feature again in most of my blogs without a doubt, because it is the single most important factor for a London event photographer when looking for images to shoot.
In this particular instance, taking event photographs for the CFA Institute within a huge area without any natural light in the ExCeL London, finding areas which have interesting light is more difficult than usual. The light itself in the conference halls is pretty good, very even and bright, which means I don’t have to worry about pushing my cameras to the limit to get great shots. However, it does mean most of my shots will be similar in terms of the lighting. You can see what I mean from this blog post about the London conference where I took this photograph. As a result, at an event like this I am always looking for any areas that have lighting out of the ordinary.

Why I like this Photo

While a lot of the light at the ExCeL London is excellent, in some of the halls and rooms the light is purposely more moody. In the hall I took this shot, the light was bright and even. As a result, when I saw this little scene happening near me I walked over to capture it. It has several things to it that I like. The way I framed it, including the reflection makes the shot really interesting and the light, in particular the almost monotone dominance of the blue really creates a great feel to the shot.
Add to that the reaction of the man we are facing and the concentration of the man to the right which brings in a human element. This is added to by some of the less corporate objects in the shot like the man to the right’s watch and the coffee on the side. All these things combine to create an image that, while it could be just a good corporate shot, is actually more human.

Working at a Conference

If you’ve worked at a conference as an exhibitor, you’ll recognise the feel to this shot. It has the feel of a conference winding down. In particular the coffee and the relaxed feel to the men in the photo contrasts with the more frenetic feel to the exhibitors at the beginning of an event. While this is something most people will miss, once you know a bit of the background and my thoughts on why I took it, you can really feel the atmosphere.

Technical Information

I’ve been working with Fuji’s for some time now. I wanted to use a fairly wide angled lens for this shot, so I chose the Fujinon XF 23mm F2 on my XT3. Because the subjects in the shot were very relaxed, I knew I had some time to get the shot right. I tried a couple of different apertures, from F2 through to F4 to see if that would change the shot significantly and finally settled on F2.8. I didn’t want the shot to be dominated by a shallow depth of field as I wanted to get that end of show feeling coming from each of the subjects rather than just focusing in on one person. In that instance it would become all about the shot and not the people in it.
The XT3’s are almost silent, even when using the mechanical shutter, which means that although the subjects knew I was there, they weren’t disturbed by me, which is crucial to the way I work.

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ExCeL London

Every time I go to the ExCeL London I’m amazed at the size of the exhibition spaces they have to offer. Having been a London event photographer for over twenty years, photographing events all over the world, I still haven’t photographed an event at a venue with comparable space and versatility.
It also helps that it’s a very easy place to work as a photographer. Most importantly it has good lighting, but it also has lots of space and levels to shoot from.

The Conference Theme

The theme of the conference this year was disruption around the world and how that effects the investment management industry. Technology, business innovation, globalisation and demographic shifts were all covered by speakers and within the breakout groups. How to take advantage of the changes was key to the conference, with many impressive speakers bringing their opinions to the table.

Speakers at the Conference

Speakers at the CFA conference included noted economists, best selling authors, leading researchers and successful practitioners. Some of the speakers were within smaller breakout groups and some on the main stage speaking to two thousand people. Notably Mohamed A. El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz spoke on the main stage about global markets, disruptions, opportunities and risks. Sir Ivan Rogers, who is a former senior British civil servant and served as the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the European Union, spoke about Brexit, a continuous theme throughout the conference.

Break Out Groups

It was interesting that, in common with a lot of other conferences I’ve photographed in the last few years, this conference had some breakout groups focused on personal wellbeing. The most impressive of these in my opinion as a London conference photographer, and certainly the best attended, with some delegates having to sit on the floor to hear her speak, was Laurie Santos who is head of Silliman College and a professor of psychology at Yale University. She spoke about the course she runs at Yale called “Psychology and the Good Life”, where she teaches 1200 students about behavioural change through positive psychology. The You Tube video I linked to above is very similar to the presentation she did at the CFA conference.

Photographing a Conference

Every London conference is different, not least of all because of the amount of delegates, and as a result the different venues used. In my experience as a London conference photographer, some are held in tiny venues for only a few people and some, as this one, have a lot more people attending. This also means the way I approach the photography is different too. For smaller conferences the photography is often to document the event, sometimes for an annual report or newsletter and as a result the photographs can be delivered the day after the event finishes. However, for an event like the CFA World Conference, the photographs are predominantly used for immediate use on social and other types of media. In an age of twenty four hour rolling news, it’s important for an event such as this to get it’s message out as the event is happening, since a day later it’s old news for a lot of media.

London Conference Photographer

My brief as one of two photographers covering the conference was to capture not only the feel of the event, but also specific aspects as they happened. Most importantly of course I needed to document the venue and the setup. We were very lucky with the weather, all three days at ExCeL were beautifully sunny, so the light we had, particularly for outside shots, was lovely. I then needed to capture the speakers and audience reactions in both small rooms for the break out groups and the huge auditorium with the main stage.
The contrast between the two types of rooms is huge, though the technique for getting great shots in them is actually very similar. Taking account of the colour temperature of the lights on the stages, as opposed to the light on the delegates, getting a range of different angles and interesting perspectives and covering all the speakers was part of my brief.

Working as a Team

I was working with Harry Richards Photography, he and I have worked together a number of times and we both know well how the other works. As a result it was a stress free experience and Harry & I split the coverage we needed between us. Here’s a link to his blog post from the event.
Because our photographs needed to be turned around so fast, Harry & I regularly took our photographs to be downloaded and retouched by a third photographer David Baird, who made quick work of making them available for use.

Your London Conference

If you found this article interesting and you’d like to see more blog posts like it, you can find them on my blog page. Alternatively, here are a few that you might enjoy. Here’s a blog about an event I photographed for Mazda and here’s one for the CPA.
Please use my contact page to ask any questions you have or to book me for your event or conference.

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