How often are you speaking with your event photographer before your upcoming event?
I can’t tell you how many times, I’ll have a client send an email asking for an event photographer to shoot their upcoming event. I’ll share with them my rates and a quotation and we are all ready to go to shoot the event. Then the crickets come in. No responses to my emails –or calls–about having a quick chat about the event shoot list. It makes us a little bit nervous when we don’t have a shoot list from our clients, for example. While we have our own shoot list, it’s 100x more reassuring to know what exactly the client is hoping for. We are essentially going into your event a bit blind.
This is a list of a few reasons why we’d love to connect with you before your upcoming event:
Email Threads vs A Conversation
You can learn a person’s email habits by how succinct they keep their email threads. I am always amazed at how clients can keep ENTIRE projects inside one email thread! While clients can be wizards at creating libraries of maps, schedules, and confirmations, it would be most efficient for both parties to KNOW the information was received and understood via a live conversation over the phone or via a virtual meeting.
Opportunity to Share Changes
Often times there will be changes to an event itinerary. Times will change. Speakers or performers might change. We want to be ready for anything that might go in a different direction than planned. Talking to your photographer ahead of time about these changes will allow us to reevaluate our own strategies for making sure covering your event is a success!
I remember covering an event where the main performer pre-determined the previous day they were going to arrive 3 hours later than the original time listed on the host’s itinerary. While it was communicated to the host 24 hours prior, it wasn’t communicated to us. We ended up arriving significantly earlier than we needed to be and was added to the final invoice for the client. Ouch!
For many who might be concerned about only having their photographer’s email address, do reach out to them to have a second channel of communication that can encourage a more expedient response. Being able to communicate with your photographer really does go a long way!
To Learn What/Who you Have Access to
For clients who are renting or leasing spaces for their event, we’d love to know where we can and cannot go during your photo session. I’ve had amazing clients share with me floor plans of their events with icons and key tables of who and what goes where. This gives us a 100% clear vision of areas we can use for group photos or shortcuts to use when needing to travel quickly to other areas of the venue.
Having a photographer’s access is such a gem! Going backstage, crossing through the aisle, kitchen access, ANYTHING! We’d love to know what areas we access respectfully.
The Shoot List!
This is the BIG one! Going through a client’s shoot list is the most important reason for having a pre-consultation.
We don’t want to miss the images you were hoping for.
The Group Photo
Many people have different ideas for what a group photo should be. In my mind, I’m considering the number of people the amount of space, and the amount of time we have to get the best group photo that is humanly possible with these points in mind. I’ve had many clients ask me to shoot ballroom-size group photos in 2 minutes I can guarantee you that will not be our best work if we do not have a conversation about it beforehand. We want to provide our best work for you.
There’s also the conversation of what level of production should we offer you for your group photo. Is this a quick snap to capture all who was there or is this something that requires a higher level of care attention and thought for posing and positioning each person or group of people in the image? These are questions we would love to ask you and take into account when we do the group photo.
To Get to Know You!
at the end of the day we love making connections with our clients. Getting to know our clients or at least the person whom we will be directly working with really does make the photo session enjoyable and more friendly in terms of customer care and interactions. Capturing the light-heartedness of the event really does speak volumes to the audience showing how enjoyable the event was how well attended the event was is absolutely our goal but we also want to create a pleasant experience for you as well.
Do keep us in mind for your upcoming quarterly or annual events. We’d love to make things seemless and stress-free for you when it comes to capturing the best and must-have moments of your big event!
Set up a Zoom consultation via the link below!
