Custom Photo Event Workflow
Table of Contens :
I.) Outlook
II.) Preparation
III.) During the Event
IV.) Post Production
V.) My Camera Gear
VI.) Links
I.) Outlook
If you plan to document a bigger event ...
... it's better to have a well adapted customized workflow.
Let's take a wedding for example. Being the photographer on a wedding is a tough job.
You have no room
for mistakes. So being well prepared is half the success. Thinking about a dedicated workflow let you work
more relaxed and saves lots of time in the Post Production.
II.) Preparation
Being well prepared is a must. Better already the night before the big day one
should check the equipment: Are all batteries charged ? Is there some free space on the Image Tank ? Often small
little but important piece is forgotten and can cause lots of trouble if missing. So going through a check list the day before
makes you sleep better.
A proposal for a list of useful gear can be found in chapter V. A
key-factor during the preparation
is a long and detailed discussion with the client well before the day X. Nothing should be taken as obvious.
To avid disappointed or even angry faces afterwards, every little detail is discussed during that meeting. A visit of the
location - if possible - can also help a lot. Where are interesting locations ? Is there enough day light inside ? As in most
cases you will be not familiar to the large amount of people that will attend the ceremony and reception afterwards, it's a
good idea to ask for a "contact person" (the brother of the best-man or the sister of the bride or ...) in order to
have somebody during the shooting who can help keeping an eye on the "IPTP" (Important People to
Photograph) list. The mother of the bride will not forgive you that uncle Jack is not seen on any picture. But how
could you possibly know that ?
After this first meeting sending out an offer, which lists all the services discussed, quotes the price for the
shooting, Post Production and Prints or Enlargements and any other important part of the agreement is the next step.
Usually a deposit payment is asked for, which makes the assignment bindingly fixed.
III.) During the Event
Immediately after arriving, finding oneself a little space somewhere to put all the
equipment is a good idea. Next I
would try to figure out, where it's good to "place yourself" during different parts of the ceremony !? This
saves time when it comes to "shooting" later.
Not necessary to mention that one is shooting in RAW format (together with as small as possible .jpg files, that are
excellent for a first quick checking and sorting of the hundreds of images later) and that a custom white balance is done
whenever the light conditions are changing.
Always check the ISO setting of the camera: It's easy to forget about the camera being set to ISO 1600, as it was so dark
inside the church after getting out into the bright sun an hour later. To avoid blurred pictures, the shutter speed should be
always at least t < 1 over focal length.
On the one hand shooting like hell is for free, but on the other hand one does not want to run out of space during the wedding
and in addition Post Production will be tiring enough - So why producing overhead on purpose ? Try to optimize the amount
of shots per "action". I mean, when somebody is standing in front of the community giving a
speech, maybe a few shots are enough, while if there is some action, you might even want to shoot
"machine gun" for a couple of seconds. (Like when they are throwing the rice ...)
How can we avoid having repeating, boring shots ? Try to avoid to do EXACTLY the same all over again and again. One
horizontal frame, one vertical, one close-up, .... this gives variety later on.
Directly after the shooting I would recommend to get yourself a drink first. You deserve it ! Next thing
on the list: IMMEDIATELY COPY ALL IMAGES to your laptop AND to the Image Tank ! A double backup in addition
to the images that you KEEP on the CF cards is a MUST. If images are gone, you can never get them back ! How
you want to explain that to the client ???
For now carefully packing your things should be it.
IV.) Post Production
Bad news: I can tell that the main part of the job starts right now ! Here, I assume that Photoshop or
a similar software is in use. First thing to do is copying all the RAW-files copied to let's say : USB-HD ("the external
USB-disk, connected to your computer"). Depending on your free hard drive space you might consider burning
the RAW-files to a few DVDs first. In order to streamline and speed up the Post Production it's essential to organize the
file in categories. Therefore a structure like
/USB-HD/wedding.../RAW
/USB-HD/wedding.../jpg-preview
The next step is to browse through all the files in .../jpg-preview and figure out a few different groups of image-themes:
e.g.
> preparation (people coming, bride getting dressed, ...)
> outside the church
> ceremony
> inside church
> reception afterwards
> wedding portraits in the park
> restaurant
> ....
Once you have this list, one makes subfolders /USB-HD/wedding.../RAW/ceremony .e.g.
These groups are super important, as development settings might change from "location to location" ....
and you want to batch process afterwards.
The Transformation of the RAW files into .tiff files can be done with special RAW-converters as
Capture One or directly within Photoshop.
One should check that Adobe RGB is used as the color profile for all images. Now one can start with the
first group, where
the pictures should be similar talking about light conditions and exposure. As we are talking about hundreds of
pictures one wants to do batch processing of similar ones. E.g. we take some "outside the church in
full sunlight"
shots: Maybe in the curves-adjustment cutting the high-key value down to 245 or 250 in order to avoid
burned whites, which would not look good in print afterwards could be a first adjustment. I am not going into
full details here, as a total beginner would be anyhow advised not to accept a wedding shot first
of all. So, maybe the contrast would be
adjusted afterwards, etc. One does not have to worry about color-balance, as the appropriate
custom white balance setting was chosen for each location !
All these steps will be repeated on all images of this one group:
Therefore they should be recorded as an "action". After some time one will have a nice selection of different
actions for different purposes - Very useful and time saving.
Let's say at one point the good settings for this group of images were found. Now, these settings
can be applied to the whole group of images in this subfolder.
Via File | Automate | Batch the action we were just talking about can be automatically
applied to a group of image files.
The processed files should be saved as .tiff files with LZW compression (for printing) and then again as large .jpg and also as small .jpg files (good to be included in a web-gallery). It becomes obvious that lots of space on the hard
drive is needed. As a thumb rule one can assume: If the total amount of RAW files shot occupy 10 GB one should
have at least 50 GB free on the local hard drive. The Image processor in Photoshop is very good for these
"save as" steps.
Now, the next group of images is processed exactly according to the described schema.
The trick here is to streamline
the operations, otherwise it will take a week or more to finish the Post Production. In case one "group" turns
out to be to large with not all in all consistent parameters, as the light was maybe changing, it's better to create another
group with a
dedicated subfolder and move the files as needed. (Remember, one always has a copy of the untouched files !)
Depending on the clients wishes one might want to transform a selection of them into
black&white. So this
would be a new folder ..../selection_bw and then one apply the bw transformation
to these files. My personal custom black&white workflow can be found here.
It might be a good idea to have a nice online portfolio for presentation to the client.
Creating a slideshow of each
group on the laptop is one way of doing this. A very nice feature of Photoshop is that .html Galleries are done
with a few clicks ! This gallery (or better multiple galleries) can be burned on a DVD or put on the web.
Adobe Lightroom offers even more sophisticated .html or Flash Galleries - also done with a few clicks.
As lots of time and effort went into the whole project, the
Backup of the whole project
should be the natural last step. Assuming we are talking about a professional assignment, it's even more important
as the client will want to have his or her images and not some explanation why all the images got lost.
( I know, I am repeating myself here over and over again .... Guess why ?
It's so important ! ).
V.) My Camera Gear ...
Let's have a look in the list of stuff, that could be useful during a - let's say five to six hour photo documentation of
a wedding (This list shows just a possible configuration and any piece of equipment can be of course exchanged by
any other piece of stuff, that seems suitable) :
- First camera : e.g. EOS 5D
- Second camera : e.g. EOS 20D
- Two sets of batteries (per camera)
- EF 50 mm
- EF 24-70 mm
- EF 80-200 mm
- EF 28-135 IS (as backup lens
- several, better many 2 GB CF cards
- ImageTank
- external flash & cable for "unleashed" flash use
- exposure meter
- grey card (for custom white balance)
- Monopod
- 5in1 reflector
- pen & paper
- tape & knife
- business cards
- Laptop (optional)
- sufficient size photo backpack
- bottle of mineral water (not for the camera - but for you !)
Why am I proposing 2 GB cards ? First of all, in the - I agree - unlikely case of a malfunction of a memory card only 2 GB or less are
lost, not the whole shooting, if it would have been on one huge card. Second, already during the event, one might have a moment
to start copying files to the image tank or laptop.
So to conclude I can say it's mega-stress and lots of work ! One word of advice: It's better to be honest and
to admit that a job is too big for oneself, than feeling honored, accepting it, and then figuring out, that one is not really
capable of doing it.
On the other hand, the old saying "Learning by doing ..." applies absolutely. My proposal: Jumping on board as a
Second Photographer in the beginning gives the security of somebody else taking pictures as a backup.
G O O D L U C K . . .
VI.) Links
»
Adobe Photoshop CS3 - (Win, OS X)
»
Capture One - (Win, OS X)
»
Adobe Lightroom - (Win, OS X)
»
photo.net - wedding forum - Any possible question is discussed here
To contact me send a mail to the
>> info <<
© 2009, Fauland Photography,
all rights reserved.
Last update: 26.07.2008.
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Event Workflow
