Tell Your Event's Story - Part One: Photography
Reid Miller
Director, Digital Content
Seeing is Believing
Every meeting and event is a special, once in a lifetime experience. Documenting the attendee experience is crucial in capturing the essence and success of each gathering. As a meeting planner or event professional, one of the keys to leaving a lasting impact and showcasing the value of your work is through event photography and social media engagement.
In this article, we’ll explore the importance of high-quality event documentation and how leveraging your phone's camera, along with creative angles, can elevate the visual storytelling of your events.
Tell Your Event’s Story
Photography can serve as a visual archive of the hard work, creativity, and attention to detail that goes into executing a successful meeting or event. High-quality images and videos not only preserve memories, but they can also be used as powerful marketing assets for future events and brand visibility. When properly executed, event photography can help increase attendee engagement, generate buzz on social media, and attract sponsors and partners for future collaborations.
Whether it's a corporate conference, a product launch, a gala dinner, or a team-building retreat, each event has its unique story to tell, and it is through powerful images that this story comes to life and makes an even greater impact.
Leverage Your Phone's Camera for Impactful Images
In today's digital age, everyone has the power to be a great content creator and brand ambassador. While a dedicated, professional event photographer may capture key moments and official proceedings, individual attendees can document unique perspectives, candid interactions, breakout sessions, and the atmosphere that collectively enrich the visual storytelling of the event. Our smartphones have become powerful tools that can help us capture these rare and special moments.
The Basics
Here are some tips on how to leverage your phone's camera to create impactful images:
- Keep it steady: Make sure your hands are steady when taking a photo to avoid blur.
- Clean the camera lens: Dust and fingerprints on the lens can cause blurring and lower quality. Regular cleaning of the lens can bring a noticeable improvement in quality.
- Experiment with Angles and Perspectives: Get creative with your angles by experimenting with different perspectives. Capture shots from high above, down low, or from unique vantage points to add depth and interest to your images. Don’t settle for the typical run-of-the-mill “back of house” photos. Shots of attendee reactions and engagement can be just as impactful as what’s happening on stage.
Understand Your Camera Settings
Take the time to explore and optimize your phone's camera settings. Experiment with different settings like exposure, focus, or different lighting conditions to find what works best for your photos.
Here are a few settings to consider:
- Disable the camera shutter sound and flash.
- HDR: Enable HDR (High Dynamic Range) to capture more details in both bright and dark areas of your photos.
- Grid: Enable the grid to help you compose your shots using the rule of thirds. Try framing your shot with key areas of the subject, like a person's face or eyes, falling on the grid.
- Focus and exposure: Tap on the screen where you want to focus to ensure sharpness and adjust exposure by sliding your finger up or down on the screen.
- Portrait mode: Use portrait mode for capturing beautiful depth-of-field effects for portraits.
- Optical image stabilization: If available, keep this feature enabled for smoother shots, especially in low light conditions.
- Use the right lens: Some models have dual lenses, so choose between the wide-angle and telephoto lens depending on your subject.
- Resolution: For higher quality, consider using 24MP or 48MP resolution options, depending on your model, and enable ProRAW & Resolution Control.
Use Editing Apps
Take advantage of photo editing apps like Adobe Lightroom or Snapseed to enhance the quality of your images. Adjusting elements such as contrast, saturation, and sharpness can transform an ordinary photo into a stunning visual piece.
Crowdsource Content
Consider establishing a photo collection protocol for attendees to upload their photos and videos, such as creating a shared folder on iCloud, Google Photos, Dropbox, or OneDrive. By encouraging attendees to use their phones to capture these moments, a diverse and comprehensive documentation of the event can be created, offering a multi-faceted view that goes beyond what the official photographer can capture alone.
Make an Impression Beyond Your Event
By mastering the art of creative documentation through your phone's camera, you can elevate the visual storytelling of your events and make a lasting impression on your audience. Your photos have the power to transport viewers back to the excitement and energy of the event, enticing them and others to be a part of future gatherings.
By sharing visually captivating images from your events on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and X, you can create a buzz around your brand and event. Encourage attendees to like, comment, and share these photos, amplifying their reach and visibility. Engaging captions and hashtags can further attract a wider audience and encourage interaction. Additionally, featuring behind-the-scenes shots, candid moments, and highlights from the event can humanize your brand, showcase its personality, and foster a sense of community among your followers.
Conclusion
In the fast-paced world of event planning, the importance of high-quality documentation cannot be overstated. By harnessing the capabilities of your phone's camera and embracing creative angles and perspectives, you have the power to capture the essence of your events in a visually compelling way. Investing time and effort into documenting your events can pay off in terms of increased engagement, brand visibility, and future opportunities. Embrace the potential of our smartphones as powerful tools for visual storytelling and make every event a memorable and impactful experience for all involved and beyond.
In Part Two of this series coming next week, we'll unveil expert tips and tricks on capturing your meetings and events through captivating video footage. So stay tuned!