Photo booth for fundraiser

anonymouscuban

OK... wasn't sure where to post this so I thought I would here. I work for a large medical device company in the diabetes division. Every year, each department chooses a captain and the captain is in charge of coming up with fund raising events and ideas to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDRF). This year, I was chosen to be the IT JDRF captain.

I had a very novel idea that has never been done here. I was thinking of setting up a "Photo Booth" in one of the conference rooms on a Saturday and charging a certain fee to take a few portraits of employees and/or family. I would do some minor processing and then either setup a Smug gallery where they can see and download/order prints or I could email the full res files to them. All the proceeds would go to the JDRF.

The cool thing is this could be really good practice for me... OR it could turn out to be a total disaster. However, since it would be for charity, the expectations shouldn't be that high and I think I can give them something as good, if not better than your average "Sears Portrait".

What do you all think? How much should the donation be? How many poses should I do, keeping in mind that I will probably be shooting alone with maybe the help of a couple people to manage the customer while they wait?

I thought they could fill out a card with their name (since I don't know everyone) and I would shoot that right before each session that way I could easily keep track of who the photos belong to.

Any other thoughts?

Nikolai

anonymouscuban wrote: »

OK... wasn't sure where to post this so I thought I would here. I work for a large medical device company in the diabetes division. Every year, each department chooses a captain and the captain is in charge of coming up with fund raising events and ideas to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation (JDRF). This year, I was chosen to be the IT JDRF captain.

I had a very novel idea that has never been done here. I was thinking of setting up a "Photo Booth" in one of the conference rooms on a Saturday and charging a certain fee to take a few portraits of employees and/or family. I would do some minor processing and then either setup a Smug gallery where they can see and download/order prints or I could email the full res files to them. All the proceeds would go to the JDRF.

The cool thing is this could be really good practice for me... OR it could turn out to be a total disaster. However, since it would be for charity, the expectations shouldn't be that high and I think I can give them something as good, if not better than your average "Sears Portrait".

What do you all think? How much should the donation be? How many poses should I do, keeping in mind that I will probably be shooting alone with maybe the help of a couple people to manage the customer while they wait?

I thought they could fill out a card with their name (since I don't know everyone) and I would shoot that right before each session that way I could easily keep track of who the photos belong to.

Any other thoughts?

Booth idea: good!

Charging: bad, BAD idea. Use it as a promotion. If they like you they may hire you for Halloween/Xmas/etc. Don't get petty.

I did photobooth on various events, both indoors and outdoors.
The things to keep in mind:

1. Make sure management is OK with your idea.
2. Keep it simple. They have not come for you. You're lucky if they stop by, but you will only have a couple of minutes per family.
3. Keep it simple. Just a 2-3 poses and let them go. Ask kids to jump, they love it.
4. Go for highkey setup. 3 lights (1 Main, 2 Floods). With all the things around you will have a strong light pollution otherwise.
5. Prepare a lot of forms for the patrons to fill. Most importantly get the principal name and email - you would have to create albums for each and let them know the link.
6. Prepare coincise and easy to read ads you can pin/tape around the event.
7. If possible try to get pimped by event organizers.
8. Always helps to have an assistant, who can handle the paperwork and crowd, leaving you time to concentrate on the actual photowork.

I'll say once again: Keep it simple. No charge, at least none up front (you can still charge for pirints). Make sure managements/organazers cooperate.

HTH

anonymouscuban

Great advice Nik but I think you misunderstood a little. Basically, we have on-going events at work to raise money for the JDRF. Today for example, one department had a bake sale setup near our cafeteria. Employees in the department baked items and then they sold them to other employees. The proceeds are all donations. Another example is I am hosting a poker tournament in my home. Half the proceeds go the prize and the other half to the JDRF.

In the case of the photo booth, people would donate money to have their picture taken. Does that make sense? We are a large company. Our building alone houses 2500 employees. We have little events like this almost everyday for about 3 months to raise money. You'd think that it would be easier if people would just donate money but getting something in return helps motive them.

The nice thing about this idea is that it really doesn't cost any money, other than my time, to produce the product so basically any money that is generated goes to the charity. Make sense? I will probably have to have them book times since I can't have 200 people show up. I actually asked a few people and they liked the idea and said they would love to have their picture taken. If I get a good response, I can setup additional days.

BTW, are you recommending High Key due to light contamination or for other reasons? What if I can setup in a light controlled room? We have plenty of very large conference rooms with no windows and independently controlled lighting. We even have a large auditorium with a stage. I may be able to setup there.

Nikolai

anonymouscuban wrote: »

Great advice Nik but I think you misunderstood a little. Basically, we have on-going events at work to raise money for the JDRF. Today for example, one department had a bake sale setup near our cafeteria. Employees in the department baked items and then they sold them to other employees. The proceeds are all donations. Another example is I am hosting a poker tournament in my home. Half the proceeds go the prize and the other half to the JDRF.

In the case of the photo booth, people would donate money to have their picture taken. Does that make sense? We are a large company. Our building alone houses 2500 employees. We have little events like this almost everyday for about 3 months to raise money. You'd think that it would be easier if people would just donate money but getting something in return helps motive them.

The nice thing about this idea is that it really doesn't cost any money, other than my time, to produce the product so basically any money that is generated goes to the charity. Make sense? I will probably have to have them book times since I can't have 200 people show up. I actually asked a few people and they liked the idea and said they would love to have their picture taken. If I get a good response, I can setup additional days.

BTW, are you recommending High Key due to light contamination or for other reasons? What if I can setup in a light controlled room? We have plenty of very large conference rooms with no windows and independently controlled lighting. We even have a large auditorium with a stage. I may be able to setup there.

Ah OK. Charity it is then, scratch my "do not charge" comments.

Highkey: for most of the non-pros (and definitely for all those not-having at least two-three studio lights at thier disposal) highkey looks the most "clean" and "professional" (90% of glam/fashion mags covers is highkey), and is surprisingly easy to achieve pretty much anywhere (if you know how, that is:-).
I tried lowkey and midkey, too, it's either way more work setup-wise or looks worse. Once I learned the highkey (which took me a while) I stopped doing those and switched to HK for the booth setups.

anonymouscuban

That makes sense Nik. I can see where fussing with a low or mid key would be an issue with this type of photography. Dealing with shadows and fill and all that jazz.

I did try High Key before and it turn out pretty good. I would setup two floods on my BG and the key light on subjects. Floods are 1 stop higher than key. Is that correct?

Nikolai

anonymouscuban wrote: »

I did try High Key before and it turn out pretty good. I would setup two floods on my BG and the key light on subjects. Floods are 1 stop higher than key. Is that correct?

Depending on what you BG naturally is. I typically go for two stops even if my bg is pure white. In any case, shoot an empty bg. If the histogram shows one single straigt line on the far right - you're good.

Mind the spill on the subject though. A little bit (under +1 stop) won't hurt too much since it can play a role of the rims, but too much may kill the cleanliness and look plain old sloppy...

anonymouscuban

Gotcha... I would probably do a white BG. So if I get this right, the objective is to get the BG bright enough to not see detail in it but not too spill. Just enough to cause some seperation between the silhouette of the subject and the BG.

Is that about right?

sweet caroline

Nik has wonderful advise, as usual. I've done a photo booth at a fundraiser a couple times, but not as its own event. It's an interesting idea. You could have the employees sign up in advance for ten minute time slots and pay their donation in advance, as well. I'm very interested to see how this goes. I have thought about doing this for my school where I teach and my children attend.

anonymouscuban

sweet caroline wrote: »

Nik has wonderful advise, as usual. I've done a photo booth at a fundraiser a couple times, but not as its own event. It's an interesting idea. You could have the employees sign up in advance for ten minute time slots and pay their donation in advance, as well. I'm very interested to see how this goes. I have thought about doing this for my school where I teach and my children attend.

Caroline... That's exactly what my wife recommended. Have them pay in advance that way if they no show, we still get the donation and they are more likely to if the pre-commit. She also suggest have them sign up for time slots. If it's popular, I can always do additional days.

I will let you know how it goes if I go through with it. I'll be honest, I'm a little chicken right now but I think I will do it. Need to talk to our facilities department to make sure it's OK and what rooms are available to me. I was even considering doing one on a Saturday that way employees can bring their kids in. I thought I'd get a better turn out that way.