Braincache

At the Marketing FAD I had a litte chat with Ben about taking photos at events and now I found the time to write a little blogpost for  Ambassadors and Contributors of all kind on what they can do to help making better photos for Marketing.

Imagene that often there is the case that there is an event (Releaseparty, Linux Fest, Installparty, FAD, FUDCON, etc.) where people are and want to take pictures of the event. Mostly its only the purpose to look later at the pictures for good memories. But sometimes it also can be that there is a need for a picture from the event and also e.g. from the booth, some Visitors, people who do something cool, etc. for some kind of later pressrelease or press-coverage or for an archive of pictures we can use for later marketing material. We often have experienced photographers from our own rows on the events, but there can also be the case that people are at another place, have no time or whatever and you want to take some good pictures. Also I myself are unable to attend, but want to put some pictures for a flyer or other deliverables together, but do not have e.g. a good picture of two asian or LATAM Ambassadors talking to a student about OLPC…
The photos for that purpose are slightly different as the I would say normal photos we know. Here are some random picks I took out of flickr and give some thoughts about them and maybe how to make better ones (remember that I look with the eyes of some kind of PR guy, a press bunny, a Flyer-Designer, etc. and I clearly do not say tat they, are bad or so. Its only for that purpose):

Here you can see some common I would say misstakes in the consens of “having pictures for later PR usage”.

General misstakes:
* people / objects to far away
* whats important? on what should the viewer focus on?
* not enough light in the room; picture to dark
* picture tells no story / has not dynamic enough composed (Interrest)
* the rule of thirds (also take a look at Ryans video from Colby telling about that) are not reminded

If I would ask somebody who did not know where the second picture is taken and who does nothing know about Linux and OpenSource he probably would say something like that: “I see some guy I can not recognice on a podest talking to a crowd of people. For mee it looks like someone who wants to sell old fridges to old ladys. I probably would not buy anything from him, because he looks boring…” (sidenote: thats in this case not really true and purely fictional to get better a picture out of it … ).

On the first picture there are a bunch of people behind a table. You cannot see them clearly, because they are way to much back at the wall and so they faces are also to dark.

Here we have another example of a good idea of a photo wich can be used when there would be some improvements (I come later to that part). Here the person of interrest is standing in the middle of the room, sidewards and many people around, but you did not clearly see if he really is the person of interrest, because the people in the back are doing things and a potential viewer would not know EXACTLY where to look…

Now we can look to some pictures I think are good for usig in some kind of PR material:

Person can easy be recognized (fills almost the complete picture), you can see where the picture took place and it is dynamic (person speaks into a microphone. It “tells the story” that someone has something important to tell.

Here we have someone else (yes, I know some know him also ), good light, you can read “fedora” on his shirt, there are people arond him, but the focus is on him concentrated on something at the Notebook. The picture tells “there is something interresting going on” and can illustrate a text wich is written next to the picture.

That picture has no person on it, but its very illustrating in combination of some kind of explaining text around and focus on only ONE word. That keeps you asking yourself “freedom. what does this mean?” The answer would probably stay in the text…

Also we can see here good the “rulez of three” also works here:

You see: it fits almost perfect into the grid.

Here we can see how interresting the work at Fedora can be.

Here you can see that its difficult to shot with the right light, so try always to use in darker rooms with no sunlight the flash

Pictures from the booth at a large event are sometimes a bit tricky, because you want a dynamic shot of people talking to other people and also some kind of “branding” with the Logo around. This pictures probably tell “there are much visitors. I wished I could be there…”

Also the usage of the flashlight here makes the faces look good.

And also group-shots can be very good to illustrate the community, friends, freedom …

So, thats probably not all what can be said about that, but it maybe gives an overview of what everybody with a cam can think of if he (or she!) go next time to an event and want to make some (better) pictures that maybe can be used for Material like pressreleases, Flyers, printouts, etc.

Most time such pictures will put into some kind of content like “Here we have a short overview over the Ambassadors and what they are doing”, a kind of report or so. So, think if you shoot such pictures what e.g. the story you want to tell will be. That helps focus on that “theme” and you probably have 8-10 pictures in a row about one theme that can later be put ito context with such Flyer. If you have the fun to take more then one picture it also enables the possibilty to took several pictures from one event in different contexts like one series for local press, one other set of pictures for upcoming Marketing material e.g. on Events & Ambassadors (introduce such to new Organizers and how a event could look like) and one set for a kind of slideshow for background at next event (showing the highlight of past events…).

Also if taking pictures of the booth and the collegues at the booth try to focus on the faces, make several pictures from different angles, always look if the light is Ok. Then the pictures and the fun will getting better and better.