Storytelling with a great event photographer

After all the energy spent planning your event, it’s important to make sure you hire a great event photographer to capture all the great moments that you worked so hard on creating. Anyone can come to your event and just start snapping photographs, but what you are left with doesn’t tell your brand/event story. Shots of people grouped together smiling in front of the camera just won’t cut it.

Every story has an emotional hook. It’s important to find an event photographer who knows what’s important to document and can create a visually pleasing storyline that compliments that hook. There are so many story vignettes that aren’t necessarily the main attraction, but can be very effective in telling the your story.

Let’s use the example of a trade show/conference.

Keynote or Main Attraction – This is the most important part of the event!

Chris Hadfield speaking at a past conference

Aside from general coverage and typical shots of the crowd and speakers on stage, why not go and tell a story within the same context.

Example 1. If someone famous is speaking, pick a fan and have the event photographer follow her and capture her experience. You can even perhaps arrange for the fan to get a backstage pass and meet the famous person. This would also create great content to use on your social media sites such as facebook, twitter or instagram. You can post real-time behind the scenes photographs as it’s happening. The fan will most likely post her experience on social media too, so you’ll get double the coverage. You can also post the photographs in an album on facebook or google+ so that the event can be relived by all your followers.

Crew behind the scenes at an event

Example 2. Show how hard your event team works, even before the event begins. You can have the event photographer document the progression of the crew building the main stage. The average person doesn’t understand how much work is done behind the scenes, so this is a great opportunity to show them.

Pre-event production meeting

Get photographs of all the big gear being wheeled in, the entire crew having a big production meeting with all their headsets on, or even massive towers of scaffolding being built. Since it’s not something you see everyday, it will spark a lot of interest and get people talking and sharing.

Tradeshow Booths –  Benefits of attending this show.

A photograph capturing the fun experience at a tradeshow booth

Booths displays are great for visually displaying your message. In telling your story, it’s important for the event photographer to not only capture people walking about, but also to capture their experience.

Having a great time at a tradeshow booth

Educational Breakouts – Our speakers are knowledgeable and passionate.

This is a great way to tell a story showing how engaged participants are or how engaging your expert is. Most of the time, these lectures are a bit dull and not the most interesting to photograph, but there is a story here.

Speakers are always passionate about what they talk about, no matter what it is. Giving them the centre stage, to tell the story of the presentation, can be a more exciting angle than just covering participants who are listening with serious faces.

You can post these photos on social media and tag your speakers. They will most likely share the photographs with their audience, which results in your event getting even more coverage.

Participants letting loose

Wrap Party – This is a fun and valuable event that we should attend.

You don’t just want to document that the party happened. You want to tell the story of how much fun the event was and that no one should miss the next one.

This is a great opportunity to pick some characters in the group, and stick to them for a while, to see how they roll or how much fun they have at the party. Fun moments can be your story angle. Sometimes it’s not enough to tell a story in a frame, it can be entertaining to watch a progression of events unfolding right in every frame.

Memorable shots like this one are a hit on social media.

A great way to show this progression is by putting the photos into one gallery photo. This type of photo would be perfect to post on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook.

A good event photographer is a very important component of your event. When looking for an event photographer take your time and make sure you pick someone who understands your specific needs and who can visually tell your story.

If you have an event coming up and want to ensure you have engaging memorable coverage click here to start the conversation. We would love to be a part of it.