Planning a birthday for yourself or a loved one involves a thousand small decisions, and remembering to hire the birthday photographer can sometimes be an afterthought.
Whilst birthday photography isn’t logistically challenging, there are a few factors that are outside the photographers control that can impact the quality of the photos they provide.
Here are three tips from Moment 2 Moment Event Photography, that can help boost the WOW factor of your birthday photo album.
1 - Many hands make light work at your birthday party
Aside from using a flash, the photographer will utilise ambient environmental lighting from sources like chandeliers, candles, disco lights, LED party lights, bonfires & the humble light bulb.
However, some venues & environments lack these lights which result in the photographer over utilising their flash - which can hurt the ability to showcase the venue in which the party is held in. Not a game breaker, but in 10 years time when you are looking at a memory reminder on Facebook, seeing what the venue looked like can help your memory come flooding back.
If you can arrange with the venue to switch on lights & provide your photographer with the permission to change them throughout the night, you’ll find that the photos you receive will be more varied & diverse, as well as having better quality background details. Furthermore, the images you’ll receive will be far better as the photographer doesn’t have to compensate with brighter flashes (blinding your patrons), higher ISO’ levels (grainier photos) or wider apertures (too much blur & difficult to focus)
2 - Tell your Birthday Photographer who your special guests are
Everyone’s welcome at a party, but the VIPs are the VIP’s for a reason - because you love them slightly more. We can take for granted who our family & close friends are, and so can your photographer.
Nothing is worse than receiving a photo album with more photos of a mate your cousin invited to the party, than of your Uncle who flew in from South Africa to celebrate your birthday plans.
Give your photographer a loose list of the people who are nearest & dearest to you (or point them out!), and you’ll see the birthday photo album that you really want to see.
3 - Itinerary of the Birthday Celebrations
Can you imagine viewing all the photos in your birthday photo album and seeing none of your mum shedding a tear as your dad gives a speech on how proud he is of you?
Birthday celebrations bring out the rare & uncommon emotions in your family and friends, which is why it’s important for the birthday party photographer to be ready to capture them at the exact moment they happen.
Given that no birthday is complete without speeches, gifts and cake - It’s super crucial to your birthday party photographer to have an itinerary (or run sheet) of the birthday celebrations to achieve this end.
Even a loose bullet point list of what is happening, at what time, can help open up the lines of communication so that your photographer of choice knows what is happening at the right times.