Yesterday, we were taking photos at the UVic graduation party. Technically, we finished shooting around 2 am today. Building on the experience of the last year’s photo shoot, we made several changes to the booth setup and the workflow.
For the booth, we used a white curtain highlighted with colored lights as the background. The colors probably could have been adjusted a bit, but we did not have time to play with different gels before the first groups of students started to arrive.
As far as the workflow, in addition to shooting at the booth, we set up a Macbook Pro connected to a 29-inch Thunderbolt display and two printers, so we could deliver the images on site. This was the major change compared to the last year.
Generally, everything went smoothly, thanks to the incredible help of our friends. Armando was shooting at the booth. I was transferring the images and helping the students with selection, emailing the files and printing. Mike was directing the queue and helping with posing the groups. Justin was processing the payments using our brand-new Square gadget on an iPad. Ilijc was shooting candid photos at the club. After shutting down the booth at about 1:30 am, Armando and I shot some more photos at the dance floor. Although all this sounds hectic, the whole experience was tremendously satisfying because of the energy of the crowd and the immediate feedback of joy and appreciation as the students saw their photos.
The day before the event, Armando, Justin and I met at Armando’s place to test the printing setup and the Square. In retrospect, we worried about printing too much – absolute majority of the students preferred digital files emailed to them. It seems that prints are becoming the thing of the past, at least for the student’s generation.
