Time can be an interesting thing. The time it takes to get a person in front of you for a project like this can feel like an eternity…but not nearly as long as the time it takes you to get the camera up to your eye as you see that person give you a genuine smile. It’s one of the things I’ve really struggled with when taking portraits of people and trying to capture a moment of genuine interaction. Those moments are so fleeting, that if you’ve got that camera away from your face because your talking to the person you’re taking a photo of, it can be gone by the time you get the camera up to take the shot…but if you’ve got a camera in front of your face the whole time, then you may never create that connection with the person that sparks their genuine reaction.
So for this project I tried something new, a remote trigger. The basic idea was that I would get the shot set up and then just get the person chatting, if I saw a moment, I would press the remote button in my hand and it would take the shot. There were a few challenges, one being that I had a tendency to stand taller than the camera, so a lot of the shots had people looking slightly above the line of the camera. It also meant I took A LOT of photos. I’m someone who is notorious for taking way too many photos at the best of times, but by the time I reached 40 people, I had taken over 1,700 photos, and when each of these photos is over 200mb, it’s fair to say my SD cards and hard-drives were filling up very quickly. But the aim was to capture genuine moments of happiness, and I definitely captured a lot more of these than ever before, so I will 100% use this approach again.
Human interaction
For my day job I do a lot of interviews for videos. These are usually with people who aren’t used to being in front of a camera, and so a lot of my job is actually just getting people relaxed and talking despite having lights, a camera and complete strangers in their face. I’ve always considered this one of my strengths, but I really noticed how rusty I had become over the COVID lockdowns. So I really wanted to use this project as a chance to reconnect with that ability to get people relaxed and talking. Fortunately, my super-power of not knowing much about anything, but a little bit about a lot of things, was enough to get me through, and I got some really lovely feedback from people who said they normally hate having their photo taken, but really enjoyed this.
Music to take portraits by
In my normal videography job, I’m doing everything I can to avoid any noise that might interfere with the edit of the video. So it was actually incredibly liberating to be able to play music in the background of each session. When I take portraits of musicians, I usually play music for those sessions, as it feels in keeping with the people I’m working with…but this was the first time I’ve done it for ‘normal people’, and it really helped ensure there weren’t any awkward silences, and helped set a relaxed vibe.
Although, when I asked Jane to play her uke and sing a song…we found out pretty quickly that ‘Ambient Scando electronica’ playing on a speaker in the room, really wasn’t helping.
But a big thanks to Nils Frahm, Jon Hopkins and Max Cooper for the tunes!
Happy accidents
At the end of each session I asked if they could flip the card with their number from one hand to the other, and I would just roll the dice with a single photo to capture what happened. Some of these photos were my favourites!
In a past life I worked as a Producer for a video production company. For the uninitiated, a Producer’s job is basically to take the Director’s vision and deliver it on budget and on time. So everything from who we were interviewing, to where the catering truck could park, to how much the Gaffer was going to cost was my remit. I remember working with a Director who, when I would try to talk him through the logistics of the day, would just say ‘Don’t worry, I trust you’…then wander off. I could never understand this. As a person who likes a certain amount of structure in their life, the thought of just wandering onto set and assuming that everything would be fine, was anathema to me.
But since then, and as I’ve had more projects where I’ve been the one doing the Directing, I’ve realised how much of your mental real-estate has to be focussed on the creative side of what you’re doing. It’s very hard to execute your ‘vision’ when you’re also worried about where to set up the urn for coffee. This is the reason so many great Directors, have an incredible Producer, doing all of the work with schedules and budgets, so that the Director can focus on the creative side of things.
It’s also why passion projects like this, where one person has to do all of the things, can be so hard.
The Budget
My ‘Director’s vision’ was to have a video camera rolling for each portrait session so that at the end I would have a little video I could show and then reveal the portrait. But as the Producer of the project, I knew that would mean either hiring a dedicated video camera, or shooting the video on my Fuji X-T4 and seeing if I could record the audio separately (I didn’t want to have a lapel mic on the person for the photo, so would have to hire a microphone and boom to get a nice clear recording of their voice). I would use a flash for the photos, so the room could be dark for that…but if I’m shooting video, then I would need to hire some video lights so that the video looked good…but then I would need the flash to be strong enough to overpower the video lights so that I could get the look I wanted for the photos. Plus, if I’m recording video, as well as photos, I would need to buy a new external hard-drive to store all of the files on. So I would basically need to hire a video camera, tripod, microphone, boom pole, external audio recorder, studio lights and purchase a new hard-drive…on a budget of zero dollars. Needless to say, the Producer convinced the Director that the video idea was not going to work.
The camera
I’ve been incredibly lucky over the last few years to be able to borrow a GFX camera from Fuji. The GFX is a Medium format camera, which basically means it has an enormous sensor that takes a very large photo. It is also eye-wateringly expensive. If I borrow the GFX body and two lenses, that can often be over $17K worth of gear. Does it make me a better photographer? No. Does it give me the confidence of a better photographer? Oh you best believe it! And when a large part of your job as a portrait photographer is convincing the person in front of the camera that you know what you’re doing, and you’re going to make them look good…sometimes, a little bit of unearned confidence is all you need.
So I was once again full of gratitude when Fuji were able to meet my budget of $0 for the camera hire.
In keeping with our traditional agreement, I have posted many photos on Insta where I have tagged Fuji and added them as a ‘collabarator’…they have not shared any of the photos.
The set-up
I wanted the background for each shot to be the same, so that when you looked at a gallery of the images, the point of difference was the person. But then that leads to the question, ‘so what’s the background?’ I have a wall in our kitchen that I’ve often used for photos, but it’s a pretty main thoroughfare for the house, and so I wasn’t keen on using that as it would mean the rest of the family was having to work around my photos for two days…and it would mean that the person I was taking photos of would have to be out in the open and potentially self-conscious as I tried to get them chatting and laughing. So I decided on using a collapsable background that I could set up in our front room…but then, what colour?! White would only really work if I had a 2 flash set up. Basically, my main flash was going to be on an angle to the person I was taking the photo of, which means the light from the flash wouldn’t be hitting the background evenly (as it’s not hitting from front on and spreading the light evenly), so I would then need to have a second flash on the white background to make sure it was an even white when the photo was taken. Given my $0 budget and lack of conviction that it would look good…I decided not to go with that option.
Black was another option…but if someone has black hair or a black top on, they can disappear into the background. The way around this is to have a second flash that sits behind them and creates some separation between them and the background…but again, I didn’t want to have to hire a second flash and trigger and stand…so I ruled this out.
The last option was the ‘cowards choice’, grey. The classic choice for the person who doesn’t want to choose between black and white. So I bought a grey background and used that for the first day of photos.
However, I soon realised that once I had set up my flash and got the lighting right for the people I was taking the photo of…the grey background had basically gone to black!
So for the other two shoot days, I purchased a white background, which ironically went back to the grey I had hoped for in the first place!
The setup with a grey background.The resulting shotThe setup with a white backgroundThe resulting shot
The People
One thing I have learnt from endurance events like marathons, Ironmans and Peaks Challenge, is that it’s no use only visualising for the finish of the event, or even for a hard time in the event, you need to visualise for all of the hard times in the event. So you have to mentally prepare for what you will do when you’re struggling at 28kms (‘You’ve done this before and you know you finish well, so just keep going’), and also at 33kms (‘Less than 10kms to go, that’s less than a before work run’, and also at 38kms (‘Less than a Parkrun to go!’)
Sadly I did not do this for the 50 Shots of happiness project. While I had prepared myself for ‘How will I get people to relax and start chatting candidly?’…I did NOT prepare myself for ‘How will I create a form on my website to contact people about being part of this?’ or ‘What will I do when my form ends up in their spam?’ or ‘Wait, do I have to create an Excel spreadsheet with everyone’s session time, and contact details?! This is meant to be about creativity…NOT SPREADSHEETS!!’
Plus, as someone who had cancelled his Facebook account, and hadn’t really bounced back from the COVID lockdowns with a ‘I really must get out and reconnect with people’ vibe…finding 50 people who are willing to give up their time, and then be told what part of their time would suit my spreadsheet, and then actually arrive at that time to have a photo taken. Was a lot trickier than I had thought.
But thankfully, my social media angels in the form of Katie and Carol Nichols meant that I had a full day booked for Saturday…and a family Christmas event on the Sunday meant that I could also rope in some family members to be part of the project.
The outstanding sign my cousin Tim created for the room I was taking photos in.
In the end I took 40 photos, with the plan to take the last 10 before I turned 51.
The numbers
People really like having something to do with their hands in a photo. It’s weird, but if they’re just sitting somewhere, they rarely think ‘Wait, what should I be doing with my hands?’…but as soon as they’re in front of a camera, they start wondering ‘Should my hands be on my lap…no wait, just hanging by my side…no…maybe by my chin, but which hand?’ Suddenly, as a photographer, you have someone in front of you who looks like they’re using hands for the first time.
So one of the things I wanted for this project were some physical cards with the numbers 1-50 on them, so that each person had one to hold in one of the photos. I wanted the numbers to a nice linking theme, but not something that distracted from the person holding it. So with that concise brief I went to Daga at Figbird to create them for me. It’s fair to say, she nailed the brief!
Next episode
So that’s how I organised the ‘nuts and bolts’…but how did I go actually working with the people in order to get some photos of people looking genuinely happy? Well you’ll just have to read my next blog.
‘Are you able to take photos and video of Snoop Dogg tomorrow?’ As a public servant, this is a question I get asked a lot.
Snoop working on his words and verbs.
For context, some students at Warringa Park (a school for students with a disability) had recorded a song at their studio and invited Snoop Dogg to come to the studio and record a verse. In a move that I don’t think anyone expected, Snoop agreed and asked that the event not have any media, so that it could just be for the students and teachers. So, as the in-house creative team for the Department of Education, my team was asked to document the event. This was right up there with a request in 2011 to drive to Kerang to take photos of actual royalty, in the form of Prince William who was there to survey the flood damage.
Now admittedly, these requests are few and far between. But requests to ‘quickly grab a few shots at the launch’ or ‘get a photo of *insert senior person in organisation* at *insert event where person will be standing at lectern in front of very bright Powerpoint presentation*’ or the dreaded ‘Just grab a few photos for socials’ are everywhere now that we all have cameras that can also make phone calls in our pockets. So I thought it might be worth passing on some tips and tricks for taking photos at events like this…and yes, what to do if you get called up to take a photo of a legit superstar.
Clean that lens
I genuinely want to run a workshop called ‘How to take better photos with your phone’ and just say ‘Give the lens a quick wipe before you take a photo.’ Then thank everyone for their time and wish them well. It seems so simple, but if you’re ever wondering why your photos look ‘flat’ or ‘muddy’, have a quick look at the glass on the lens and see if there are any finger prints/sunscreen/sweat on them. If you’re anything like me, there will be…but they can be gone with a 2 second wipe. On the bikepacking trip I did earlier this year I made a conscious effort to wipe the lens each time I went to take a photo, and the results were glorious.
Tell a story
I know that this is tricky, especially if there isn’t a story that’s immediately apparent. But so many photos I see from events seem to say ‘A thing happened. Here’s proof’. This is great if your sole objective is ‘have proof we did something’. But if you’re looking to engage with an audience who has an entire social media feed of super interesting content. You’re going to have to work a little harder. If you’re taking photos at an annual event, you want something that makes people think ‘I have to go next year’. If it’s a one-off event, you want people to think ‘Wow, I wish I had been there!’, if it’s just to document something that happened (a visit by someone important/ a workshop/ a conference), then you want people to think ‘I wonder what it was like to be there’. It’s also worth remembering that 99% of your audience are people who would be attending your event, not presenting at it, so make sure you get photos of people enjoying/engaging with the event (no one at the events I’ve taken photos at has signed a consent form saying ‘it’s OK for Chris to use this on his own personal blog’, so I don’t have any examples to show…but rest assured, I take them at every event). In short, you want people to engage with the pictures and create a story in their minds.
Your Chief Financial Officer probably won’t be as good at posing as Snoop, so enjoy it while you can.Make sure you’re ready to capture moments like this.The lyrics to what Snoop was about to rap.The music teacher and Snoop’s entourage discuss production techniques, while he works on his flow.
People love stories, and our brains love finding connections, so try to take a few photos that tell a story and that allow people to make connections between.
In this picture you can see; Snoop Dogg is there, he’s at a school, and the kids are excited he’s there. Also, the number of people who made reference to what’s written on the board when they saw the photo was staggering. Why did they like it? Because they were able to make the connection between ‘teachers writing a message for students on a white board’ and that message including ‘fo shizzle’ which is something that Snoop would say. You let their mind make the connection, and they got a little dopamine hit for doing it. Everyone wins!!
Three’s a crowd
We’re all susceptible to a bit of FOMO. So when you’re taking a photo of something you want to make people say ‘Oh, I wish I was there!’, then frame the photo between people who are there. On a purely liminal level, it puts the viewer into a situation as if they were actually there (unless you’re right at the front in the VIP seats, you’re probably going to have people in front of you) and it makes for a more interesting shot. On a subliminal level it says ‘there were so many people at this thing, the photographer had to take the shot through a crowd of people. Why weren’t you there?!’ Best of all, if there aren’t heaps of people at the event, you only need 2 people to make it look like there were!
Unfortunately I don’t have consent forms to cover me using the photos I take at work events, so can’t show you an actual example…but it works just as well at music gigs.
Get to the part about Snoop Dogg!!
Ok, I’ve buried the lede long enough. What do you do if the stars align, the Gods smile upon you, and you’re suddenly called upon to take photos of someone BIG?
Have a plan
I am genuinely amazed at the number of times people assume that because you have a camera in your hands you know what should be happening. And believe me, if you say something like ‘I don’t know…just…you know…act natural’, you are in for a selection of the most awkward photos you’ve ever taken. So with Snoop, I had a series of questions I was ready to ask if the students got too nervous to talk, or if Snoop was looking like he needed some direction. I also had five shots in mind that I wanted to get, so I knew I could ask people to do those if there were any awkward lulls. For the record, both he and the students were so good, I needn’t have worried.
Snoop with the list of artists the students had on their ‘wishlist’.
Take a LOT of photos
We are not shooting on film, with just 12 exposures…and you have the rest of your life to delete the photos you don’t want. So take a lot of photos. I know professional photographers will sneer and call this a ‘spray and pray’ approach. But at the Prince William event I mentioned at the start of this blog, I missed a photo of one of our key staff shaking hands with the Prince. It still haunts me, and I would have happily deleted photos for hours rather than have to send him the email admitting I’d missed the shot.
At the Snoop shoot, I took over 500 photos in under an hour. I reckon there will be about 20 that I’m really happy with, and probably 3 that I’m stoked with. But every person there got a photo with Snoop where they both look good, and that’s worth its weight in gold.
Be confident…or at least fake it convincingly
If you look like you know what you’re doing and you’re happy to be there, you will get great responses from the people you’re taking photos of. If you look stressed or overwhelmed, people will ‘tighten up’ in front of the camera. Now this truly sucks, because internally you ARE going to be freaking out, and your mind will be running at 1,000 thoughts per second, and it would be GREAT if people knew that and all said ‘Oh you poor thing, this must be so stressful for you.’ But you know what doesn’t make a great photo…people looking at you with an ‘Oh you poor thing’ expression on their face. So take a deep breath, put on a big smile and get used to saying ‘That looks awesome! OK, just one more, looking here. Perfect!’
At the Snoop shoot I think I was a picture of positivity, but at the end I helpfully got a message from my watch saying ‘This has been a stressful period, make sure you balance this with some relaxation or meditation’. Not now, watch…not now.
But stress aside, this was a genuinely amazing experience. There was an amazing sense of joy and excitement in the room, and I like to think I captured some of that. So if you’re not afraid to take a photo, then put your hand up to take some photos for your work events…and if the opportunity to work with Snoop Dogg presents itself, then I highly recommend you take it!
