It’s now three days into Queen Elizabeth’s tour of Canada and (as expected) the photos are quite boring and even non-existent. Political conventions and campaigns usually have better photo planning. I don’t know why the same effort isn’t put into a royal tour. I suspect it’s because a royal tour is basically run by the police rather than a creative director or a public relations agency.
The purpose of a photo op can be completely lost due to poor preplanning. For example, what’s the point of doing a statue unveiling when the statue isn’t in the photo? Why have the talent stroll through a garden when the garden isn’t visible?
At an outdoor event at the Governor General’s Ottawa residence, the small photo riser was completely filled by just five TV cameras. But amazingly, that riser was supposed to hold all 22 video and still photographers. Photographers were left to shoot through, or over, three rows of standing people who were placed in front of the photographers. It didn’t help when police decided they also had to stand directly in front of the photographers.
Here’s the Queen’s arrival by landau on Parliament Hill, shot from the photo riser:
If you’ve got a sharp eye, you might notice that (a) the photo position is rather far away and (b) there are a few people in the way.
Also, from other events:
• Queen meeting 10-year old girl: no picture due to bad position and people in the way.
• Queen and Afghanistan war vet: no picture due to bad position and people in the way.
• Queen with group of Mounties: no picture due to bad position and people in the way.
• Queen unveiling statue: Queen and statue too far apart, too many people in front and behind.
• Queen with honour guards: no picture, too many people and TV in the way.
• Queen inspecting troops: TV in the way.
• Queen’s red carpet arrival: no picture, too many people and TV in the way.
• Queen’s red carpet departure: no picture, too many people and TV in the way.
The point is, if you’re organizing a public relations or similar type of marketing event that will have photo coverage, please please please be very sure you know what photographers need to make good photos. You must carefully examine the foreground, background, lighting and camera angle of the location of your photo op. Great pictures don’t just magically happen by themselves.
Why spend the time and money for a mediocre photo op? You need a strong picture to help guarantee that the photo will get published and that your message will be seen and understood. Preplanning and pre-visualizing your photo op is crucial.
