Photography Speedometer

Does a camera have a speedometer?

I received a request a few days ago to photograph a Toronto conference later this month. The event organizer said they expected the photographer to deliver a minimum of 125 pictures per hour. Huh?

Perhaps:

1) They want to make sure the photographer is kept busy taking pictures.

2) They think a lot of pictures means they’re getting their money’s worth.

3) The customer doesn’t trust the photographer to do the job properly so they ask for lots of pictures hoping to get what they really need.

4) The customer has been “trained” by previous photographers to expect volume. Some photographers think quantity is a substitute for experience.

The customer also requested that all images be put on a CD or USB stick and handed to them at the end of the day. No editing required. This really suggests that they’ve worked with dump-and-run photographers.

(Side note: This conference was cancelled today due to the coronavirus threat. It’s my fourth cancellation this month because of the virus.)

(Side note 2: I’ve noticed on some event photographers’ websites that they do promise a certain number of pictures per hour. Even some family portrait photographers work on a pictures-per-hour basis. None of this makes any sense. Why be a hourly wage worker?)

Slow Down

Would you rather have 10 images that say nothing or one photo that says it all?

Some conferences post their photos on sites like Flickr or Facebook. Scroll through these images and you will often see dozens of meaningless or poorly taken images that should have never been shot or should have been deleted. Does posting more pictures mean the event was more successful?

I’ve never worked by volume probably because I started with film: 36 frames in a roll of 35mm, 12 frames in a roll of 120 and one frame in 4×5. You could shoot multiple rolls of film but you were always conscious of the film cost, processing cost and processing time.

I also used various photo transmitters starting in the mid-1980s including a UPI transmitter, a T1, a Leafax 35 and finally a Nikon film scanner and laptop. All of these required the photographer to process film, make a print (for the UPI transmitter), and then transmit the image by analog telephone line. Photographers had to be very disciplined to shoot carefully and edit tightly to minimize the time required to process film, print and send images.

I photographed a four-hour health-technology event a couple months ago and delivered 58 images. That’s equivalent to about 15 photos per hour although I did shoot 262 pictures in total. The customer was thrilled with the results.

Hire an experienced conference photographer, let them work at their speed and you will get exactly the pictures you need.