Essential PR and Press Photography Top Tips

Whether you’re the client or the photographer these essential PR and Press Photography Top Tips should serve as a helpful guide and reminder. Here’s what’s required in advance, during and soon after a PR and press photography shoot. The key areas to consider are:

• • Preparation and the photography brief
  • Camera kit, settings & flash
  • Image framing and content
  • Things to look out for
  • Other considerations
  • Shot selection and delivery
  • Costs

Preparation and the photography brief

If you’re the photographer you’ll most likely be working alone. So, you’ll need to be as prepared as best you can be ahead of the shoot and have your wits about you on the job. Ask the client ahead of the shoot for a written brief so that everyone’s clear in advance which are the key shots to nail. If possible, have a schedule (or timeline) so you know what’s happening and when. This will also help to identify any likely problems that might arise and allow some time to work out how best to tackle them, if they do.

Check the address of where it is that you need to be and how long it will take you to get there, so that you can make sure you arrive in plenty of time.

Make a note of the mobile numbers of the client and your contact at the shoot in case you need to contact them. They should also have yours.

The client should obtain all relevant permissions and signed consent forms in advance but ask the question and double check that’s the case.  it’s also a good idea to have a few extra of their consent forms, printed off and to hand on the day…just in case. So, you should have a pen with you, too.

If you’re the client, you’ll benefit from providing the photographer with as much detailed information as you can ahead of the shoot to ensure you get exactly what you want from it…and often more. Communicate clearly with the photographer and answer any questions that may arise to avoid any ambiguity or misunderstanding.

Camera kit, settings & flash

It’s important carry spares. Take a second camera body as a back up just in case. Technology can and does fail; sometimes at the most inconvenient moments. There’s nothing worse than finding you’re unable to take any photographs due to a technical problem with a camera which can’t be fixed there and then.

Make sure the camera battery is fully charged, and pack a fully charged spare.

Have a clean memory card in the camera or at least one with plenty of spare capacity. Again, make sure you have another, just in case.

Check the batteries in your speedlite flash have plenty of life in them and carry some new spares. If you don’t have a second speedlite, test the one you do have prior to the shoot.

Pack a versatile zoom lens that will provide you with a flexible range of focal lengths from wide angle to telephoto. A 24mm – 105mm or similar is a great choice. Remember you’re carrying a spare body, so why not have an alternative longer or more wide angle lens fitted to that and ready to shoot?

Make sure all your lenses have clean glass.

Use a white balance card to make sure you come away with true and accurate colours in your shots. There will almost always need to be some adjustments made in post production to colours and levels.

Unless you’re looking to achieve some deliberate blur, set the camera to use a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second or faster. Depending on the lighting conditions and the depth of field you want to use, you may need to alter the ISO to achieve this.

Check any other camera settings are correct for the shoot. For example, you may wish to have the motor drive function switched on.

Always shoot in RAW format which is fully editable. You may also wish to save images at lower resolution, in tandem, in jpeg format. This is useful as it helps with faster reviewing.

If you’ve been asked to deliver shots straight away, you’ll also need a laptop and a card reader. See more on this in the ‘delivery’ section.

Image framing and content

Telling as much of the story or message as possible or at least a good chunk of it in one shot

Timing/lack of time

Promoting an event ahead or generating publicity after (or both)

Social media and various press/websites, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc

visually engaging

Things to try and avoid… very dark locations that are tricky and time consuming to light well, very contrasty lighting or extremely mixed artificial lighting.

Arms folded without a huge smile, distracting background objects behind heads and shoulders, unknown people in the shot, don’t frame extremely wide angle shots with people at the edges of the frame as they’ll look seriously distorted and certainly won’t thank you for it. Take a few more steps back if you can, or ask the group to move further away from the camera. Take a few shots of the same scenario/framing as people tend to blink a lot and faces can look their best in one frame but not so much in the next.

Be careful to avoid distracting information behind people’s heads such as plants or distracting patterns.

Keep a dialogue going with the group and hold their attention so that they’re looking at you and the camera and not at the ground, for example or having personal chats, aside. If you need to get the attention of one or more people, don’t be afraid to politely pipe up. You’re all there to get the job done as best you can.

Things to look out for

For PR and press photography shoots, don’t run the risk of shaky results. Use higher shutter speeds which are suitable for hand held photography. This may mean increasing the camera ISO. Don’t give it a second thought.  This is the best way to go as you often won’t have time to use a tripod and a monopod will slow you down, too , Coming away with the key shots is the most important part of this particular kind of (commercial photography) brief. If you need to use flash lighting, then keep it simple and camera-mounted unless you have the luxury of time.

If you’re arranging a group shot make sure the camera can see everyone’s faces-unobscured. Arrange the tallest at the back. If you can, give the camera some elevation, this really helps these situations. A simple but  effective approach is to stand on a chair. Use an aperture that will provide you with enough depth of field to keep everyone’s faces in focus. With focal lengths of 20mm – 50mm f11 or f8 work well.

Take a few shots of every group as people tend to blink frequently and you’re almost guaranteed to capture a ‘blinker’.

Remember that images are likely to be cropped, so shoot to allow for that. Don’t frame too tightly. Designers and picture desk editors prefer to have cropping options.

With social media in mind the preferred framing format should be landscape with consideration being given to cropping the shots to square. Your camera will have a setting to display a grid in the viewfinder which is very helpful for this.

organisation/skill/experience

framing/engaging/interesting/unusual/angles etc.

Where’s the camera? What’s in the background?

grouping

people/expressions/emotion/action

branding

location

background/brand/branding

charity/fundraising/awareness

high street/retail/business

story

expression/mood/movement/posture

relevance/storytelling

fast turnaround/delivery/formats/methods/wifi hotspots/laptops/mobiles/picturedesks

Lenses/usually wide/exposure/flash etc.

depth of field

lighting/mixed lighting. Try and avoid mixed lighting with different colour temperatures. If you are able to, try turning some off to avoid horrible mixed colour casts. Don’t be afraid to compensate with bounce flash.

Frame loose to provide cropping options

Prep in advance/brief participants/timings/activities/clothing/branding etc.

 

 

 

Other considerations

Shot selection and delivery

Same day or next day delivery are very popular with clients and Wetransfer is typically the chosen ftp solution using the sender’s and recipients’ email addresses for download links.

Increasingly clients are asking for images on the day of the shoot to upload to social media in particular as well as supplying local and the wider press.

For this, you’ll most likely need to have your laptop with you and a Wi-Fi connection to enable a quick review of images and delivery via ftp such as Wetransfer.

If there isn’t a readily available Wi-Fi connection you can create a personal Wi-Fi hotspot using your Smartphone. Size your shortlisted images according to the brief, then save and send as jpegs to cut data transfer time (unless otherwise instructed) 

Retouching – if you can see something that’s a problem in the shot that’s easily removed from the frame then do it there and then, it’ll save additional time and cost in post production. Typically this will be an item of litter or it could be wayward hair, an upturned collar, a notice Blu-Tacked to a wall or something else. Keep your eyes peeled as you’re on a tight schedule and a tight budget.

Costs

Even if someone says “we won’t need you for more than an hour”, that’s only the time on location. There’s also the time to travel there and back to base to factor in plus mileage. The additional time saving the digital files from the camera to a laptop or hard drive, editing, shortlisting and polishing off the shots in post production (usually Adobe Lightroom) as well as delivery. So, realistically even the shortest PR job is going to involve a minimum of 2.0 hours and some expenses. Don’t forget you may well have to pay to park the car if you’ve needed to drive.

 

Shoot min charge inc travel to 30 mins & 10 miles each way

Time on shoot to 1.5 hours unless otherwise negotiated

Post production & delivery via ftp (typically Wetransfer)

extras inc parking etc