I had a friend refer someone to me for a photo session. At first I thought it was just for a little group photo, turns out it was for an insurance company and they wanted a company group photo of everyone! After reaching out to introduce myself and get some more details I got a better idea of what they wanted. This was going to be a corporate company photo of everyone at their office in the Van Aiken district, and it was going to include upwards of 80 to 100 people.
Planning
They had an idea of where they wanted the photo to be taken, a small grassy area in front of their offices. It was a nice little triangular plaza with a grassy space and some trees. When I first started talking with them it was still cold out so I had to visualize where they could stand and not have tree branches in the way. After emailing with the contact I offered to come by and get an idea of the space, and we took a quick walk through the office to get an idea where we could gather everyone if the weather didn't cooperate on the date they were planning.
After the walk-through I went down and looked around the area they liked in the plaza. After trying to frame up a shot that could possibly fit the headcount, I looked up and noticed they had some signage at the very corner of their building, which of course, had to be in the shot. I also noted that the little plaza area had quite a few chairs that looked like they could be moved easily. I took a test shot with my cell phone so I could send to my contact so that they had an idea of the shot I was planning.
As the date approached when they wanted to have the shoot, I stopped by a couple times to plan where people could be positioned, and noted the location of the sun in the sky during time of day. I was able to get a few test sessions done to frame up the shot where it had a limited amount of unwanted things in it like light posts and garbage cans. I noted where there were a few things there that were unwanted and unavoidable, but they might be able to be cloned out of the image to keep it as clean as possible.
Day of the shoot
I'm an early riser, I usually get up and walk my pup at 4:30 in the morning. I'm also usually pretty early to scheduled things I'm supposed to be at. For this shoot it was scheduled to happen at around the noon hour, so of course I got there at 9:30 to prepare a bit. With it being the middle of the week, the little plaza area did not have a lot of people around. With the threat of a little rain shower it seemed most were over in the little covered market area.
I started by moving the tables and chairs that were in the area off to the sides a bit to somewhat direct people wandering through the area around to the sides. After moving the tables and chairs so they were not in the shot I started setting up some of my lighting stands that would be fine in the impending rain. With a few rows of people in the frame I had a ladder I was planning to stand on to elevate the shot a bit, so I set that up to get a few more test shots. I also had my drone which I needed to make sure it could take off and take a couple shots. After everything was set up I emailed and called my contact to let them know I was all ready whenever they were and once the rain had passed we would be all set. With that all complete I wandered over to enjoy some coffee from the local shop and waited for the rain to pass.
All of the prep paid off, as they all funneled out I was able to get them in the area and positioned. A couple things I want to improve on in the future is some of the composition. While I did kind of move quickly here because it was getting kind of hot out, with a group this large you want to move quickly so that everyone keeps those smiles on. A few extra moments making sure that there are somewhat uniform rows of people, and that the stragglers on the edges close in tighter, can improve shots like this. Overall though I was happy with the frame, however there were a few edits needed. There was a light post sticking out of the top of the tree that I cleaned up, and some string lights and a post off to the side that was distracting and needed removed. There was also one person that seemed to be directly behind someone else's face, luckily I took a few other test shots and I was able to clone them in to the final shot.
If you're looking to have either large group photos, or professional portraits done of your team, reach out and we can discuss details!
