How do you make teenagers want to participate in a photo booth while keeping photographer effort at a minimum? Answer: You copy the photographer of their favorite celebrities.
Students in a photo booth at a school dance. Implementation of a photo booth has greatly increased online photo sales and become an essential part of the school dance experience. © The Carillon
Historically, one of the most popular features of our mixer photography has been the photo booth. These photos sell well on Zenfolio, are posted frequently on social media with our watermark, and are very efficient to take effort-wise. Under ideal circumstances you can set up the backdrop and flashes correctly at the beginning of the dance and just focus on taking the shots for the rest of the dance.
The Inspiration
Terry Richardson directing a photoshoot. Notice the speedlight attached slightly off lens.
Our booth photos are inspired by photographer Terry Richardson. His setup is a plain white backdrop with an offset speedlight to get high contrast shadows and blown out highlights. Richardson poses his subjects more candidly than typical portrait photographer, using props and unconventional posing directions to achieve this look.
Lana del Rey shot by Terry Richardson for T magazine
Barack Obama shot by Terry Richardson
Kendrick Lamar shot by Terry Richardson for Document magazine
The Execution
Because we're shooting in a large dark room and are shooting more than one person we have to make a modification to Richardson's one speedlight setup. Our normal setup requires:
- 2 light stands
- 2 strobes
- 3 Pocket Wizards
- 1 matte white backdrop
- 1 camera
First the white backdrop is set up against a wall. Both strobes are set on light stands 10-15 feet from the backdrop at roughly 35º angles to the center of the backdrop where subjects will be standing. When the trigger on the camera is pushed, one Pocket Wizard attached to the camera's hotshoe will send a signal by radio to the Pocket Wizards attached and plugged into each strobe. The strobes will fire when a signal from their respective Pocket Wizard says that the camera's trigger was pressed.
The Result
Even with improper set ups we can good replication of Richardson's style, regardless an attractive setup for photobooth shots and consistent. Post-processing is absolutely essential for these photos, slight over-exposure and correct white balance make or break these because the large white backdrop makes these features more prominent than in a normal portrait.
What we get is a fun and consistent type of shot that eschews the traditional photo booth in favor of a more modern shot that takes its cues from fashion and celebrity magazines. Teenagers are on social media to stand out and you give them a picture that looks different. These have a high rate of success being purchased or posted with an organization watermark and require minimal work after setup making them a perfect extension of traditional school dance photography.
© The Carillon
© The Carillon