We got a call from Sonia Stringer, a motivational speaker, to shoot her 3 day conference she was hosting to empower women to lead more successful lives. Sonia is the owner of http://savvynetworkmarketingwomen.com and has helped over 70,000 men and woman take control of their lives financially through a variety of business opportunities. Sonia needed high quality imagery of her conference to help her promote her future conferences and products. She was a blast to work with because she gave me the freedom to “GET THE SHOT” and what I mean by that, is she allowed me to do whatever I needed to get great imagery of her captive audience and her speaking. Since most conferences with speakers can be long and boring it is nice to be given permission to go where ever and do whatever to get awesome images. This meant that I got to get the standard crowd shots and speaker shots, but I got to go behind the stage and use the stage lighting to really highlight and accent the speaker which helps glorify them. I even setup a boom poll on the second day to rise over the curtains and shoot a wide angle shot of the speaker on the stage and the crowd. I am not usually allowed these freedoms because it can sometimes be seen as a distraction, but the shots are always worth it.
After the event is over sometimes all people have are the photos and if its just the typical shots from behind the crowd it can be a little dole, but when the photographer is granted the right to be creative the client can really get some new and interesting marketing material to promote the next conference or event. Photos are worth a thousand words and the more unique the image the better those thousand words will work for you when you go to market your next event.
With that said take a look at some of the shots and keep in mind next time you hire an event photographer think about giving the creative freedom to get shots that most photographers don’t at your typical conference.
Update: Just got this email from Sonia. I love happy clients
