Best Practices for an Event Photo Gallery

bikelanta · November 12, 2009

Hello all, here is the opportunity. I am operating a "photo booth" this weekend for a charity 5K. The organization holding the race promotes health and wellness for young girls, who run as a team. Before and after the race, the teams of girls can get together with their coach and have their photo taken as a group. The groups could vary in size from two to about ten people. Having done something similar in the past, I ended up with a large gallery of photos that took people a long time to sort through in order to find their photos. What I'm seeking are ideas on how best to help speed up the search process while remaining efficient on both the day of the shoot and when I organize the photos. I will be handing out business cards, which will have the address of the gallery where the photos are stored.

From here, does anyone have any ideas for people to find themselves on this gallery that remains efficient for the shoot and for my workflow? If it helps your thinking, I'm using Lightroom for the organizing and processing. I have a few thoughts, but before I throw them out there, I'd like to hear from the forum.

Thank you for all your thoughts,
T.J.

aj986s · November 12, 2009

I'm no pro or expert, but was wondering if you could prepare some business cards with all your pertinent contact info, and then assign a unique number to each "group" as they come to you. You could organize the pictures by "group number" and write the number on the backs of the business card(s) you give them.

Ann McRae · November 12, 2009

Here is what I would do:

Create a custom category for the event.
Within the category, set up one gallery per hour that you shoot.

So you would have 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m.

Then give the subjects a business card with your site info and jot down the time they had their photo taken, and tell them to find the appropriate gallery.

Keep the # of photos per gallery manageable, so if necessary make a gallery per half hour.

My experience with this is in organizing 35K shots from a 6 day long National Badminton event. Not an easy task.

http://canadian-ann.smugmug.com/Canadian-National-Badminton

ann

bikelanta · November 12, 2009

Thanks Ann and Tony
Thanks for your responses Ann and Tony.

My thinking was exactly inline with how Ann handled it with the Badminton tournament. I think it especially makes sense, because I can get Lightroom to Auto Stack based on predetermined time increments and then create galleries based on those times. I figure I'll wait until the actual shoot to see how large the galleries are and then determine what time increment to use.

I thought about the group numbers, but with 850 runners currently signed up for the event, I think it will slow the process down too much for an event of less than three hours.

Out of curiosity, any other ideas floating out there?

BradfordBenn · November 12, 2009

Just an idea, and I am by no means an expert as I have never done anything like this. What about using keywords and a sign. Typically these teams have names. On a sheet of paper, perhaps even a grey sheet of paper for white balance, with a large marker write the team's name. Have them hold it up so that you can see it okay in the photo. Then when using Lightroom you can keyword them to have the team name.

Might work? Might be folly? Just sharing an idea.

Best Practices for an Event Photo Gallery

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