Corporate Event Photography

Corporate Event Photography

by William Lulow

I have done a fair amount of corporate event shoots in my career and from the beginning, I have always looked for ways to make the images more visually compelling, just like I do for my portraits or scenic shots. They used to call this type of making public relations photos the “grip and grin” technique, where someone is getting an award and they need a publicity shot of the event. So, the presenter and presentee, shake hands and smile for the camera! These images are usually made with a flash-on-camera which is okay for lighting the subjects, but the backgrounds are usually dark (if the event is indoors at night), and there is no hint of where the event is taking place. To my way of thinking, this is just plain boring. It may get the job done as far as showing the subjects, but it lacks any kind of creativity. So, what can a photographer do to make it more interesting?

Here is a decent “two-shot,” but the background is dark, if not actually black. The woman on the left’s hair blends into the background, but it’s a pretty typical kind of event shot. Here is another with some creative lighting added:

Look how much more interesting it is! For a shot like this, I use my MONOLIGHT flash heads to create some light on the background. I often let it spill over onto the subjects themselves. In this case the man on the right is actually blocking the light, creating a kind of HALO LIGHT around his head, but adding some interesting light to the other two people in the shot. This technique I often refer to as a “human gobo.” (A “gobo” is usually a black card or a flag that “goes between” the light and the camera in order to keep light from hitting the lens.) So, I try to position the camera in such a way as to block the light from wherever it may be coming. It is fairly easy to keep an eye out for where the lights are and position yourself (and the camera) in such a way as to block the off-camera lights.

Here is another example:

While the speaker here was getting ready, I placed one of my extra lights off to her left (camera right) and aimed it at the background. This way, the light I have with me on the camera lit the subject and the other light lit the background, making for an interesting image and composition. It also defines the place and environment a bit.

My equipment for a job like this consists of the following:

• Two additional portable flash units
• Two battery packs for the units
• Two radio receivers
• One radio trigger mounted on the camera
• One portable flash unit mounted on the camera
• Two light stands

All of this is packed into a case with wheels. It is actually, a fairly easy way to transport my location kit and I can carry three lights, total to make the shoot as interesting as possible. My main camera gear in in a backpack and the case above can be wheeled around easily along with the two light stands.  Here is a typical set up:

Here you can see the positions of my two accent lights, with the one on the camera making this image. Here’s what the rig for the camera looks like:

The camera has a Pocket Wizard flash trigger, with my on-camera flash mounted on top of it. I always use some kind of diffuser attached to the flash. This makes the light bigger and therefore softer. Since it is bounced, and my other accent lights are used direct (with no diffusion), this keeps the accents about one f/stop brighter than the main light on the camera, thus assuring that the accents will register as white. Another way to make effective images of events is with my monolights on their OPTICAL settings. Since I like to have one unit on the camera at all times, this setting eliminates the need for a radio trigger, but the off-camera strobes have to be able to “see” the camera in order to flash.

The reason for keeping a soft flash on the camera for events is that if you need to walk around to get images of attendees, you will always have a light to light the subject in front of you.

Here’s the sample shot from this kind of setup:

Here, the model’s face is lit and the accent lights on either side provide the added sparkle!

Here’s a similar shot from the most recent corporate shoot:

Here, though, the accents were produced by only one light.

One last thought about doing these kinds of assignments: don’t forget that you have an iPhone with you! You can sometimes integrate iPhone images into an assignment like this. Any camera on AUTOMATIC settings, will produce a fairly well-lit image of just about any scene. You have to be aware of a few things about iPhones, however. Any camera, when used on its AUTO setting, will do what it can to produce an acceptable image. This means it will increase its ISO setting or decrease its shutter speed to compensate for a low light level condition. So, if you are aware of this and can hold your iPhone steady enough to make a good image (or put it on a tripod), you can come up with some interesting images. Here is one:

Will this camera phone image qualify as a prize winner? Not really. But it captures a moment that might be difficult for a regular DSLR that is hand-held in an event situation. You could definitely make a shot like this with your regular camera, but you would need to set it on a tripod and make some light experiments in order to arrive at the best exposure. For an event like this however,  this image makes its point. It probably won’t be used as a poster, just mainly on-line in a blog post or for a website. In that case, it depicts the location and some action during this corporate event.

You can also use a higher ISO setting for some of these shots because, again, the photos probably won’t be used in large sizes and it gives you more leeway to be able to shoot with smaller apertures and hence greater depth-of-field.

Lighting is often difficult on an event shoot and you cannot always use available light especially at night. You can control it to an extent, but a photographer should use any and all tools at his or her disposal in order to produce salable images for a client. These are just some of my techniques for getting the job done.