Photography - DIY or Hire a guy?

I've always done everything myself: the websites, the marketing, ...
But in the photography department I was lacking... I've been doing this for 10 years, and hardly a decent picture to show my work.

I recently bought me a better camera, and took a introduction class at Nikon School (well, and a second class at a faceapainting convention) and I'm intrigued by this art.
After the second class, I downloaded the 30 day trial of the program Lightroom, and the possibilities are just ... WOW!
Colours are more vibrant, backgrounds are easy to edit... I can't believe it took me this long to try this out

But still, I can't imagine I'll be hauling the expensive new camera to gigs...

Do you do all your own photography, or hire a photographer occasionally to get good pictures?
If you do your own, is it part of your package? as in: paint a face - take a pic - put it on your facebook page and give the parent a business card mentioning they can find the pic on your facebook page?

I suck at photography, so I trade session with photographer friends of mine.

i.e. "I'll entertain at your kids party if you take pics for me."

I'm trying to get a couple of these girls together and organize a portfolio party for the upcoming season.

I'm in desperate need of little faces with my paintings on them for my page, etc... but I do offer for cheap/free to take pictures while I paint and then send the digital copies to the host after the party.  I have a pretty decent DSLR camera so this way I can still see what worked and didn't work in my paintings and the host gets some decent pictures for themselves.

Yeah, unless it's a PPF gig, I cannot justify pulling out a camera on a client's time--(although I may ask them to send me something, which seldom happens).

I always admire that Daizy practices on her incredibly photogenic kiddos & gets such good shot herself!

I totally did a trade in the fall with one of my photographer friends. I got some great headshots and she got a few hours of face painting for her customer appreciation day. I love professional trades like that

Oh and I got some extra photos at her party since she had a photo booth set up LOL!!

anniel wrote:Yeah, unless it's a PPF gig, I cannot justify pulling out a camera on a client's time--(although I may ask them to send me something, which seldom happens).

I always admire that Daizy practices on her incredibly photogenic kiddos & gets such good shot herself!

Yeah, like seriously... My incredibly photogenic kiddo has to be incredibly bribed to have her face painted... she's sick and tired of it after 10 years and refuses to help her poor mom out now that I finally figure out the photo stuff

I'm in the same boat with my kids. Seriously they want $25 per paint and modeling session. I can't afford that sh*t, I'm "just a face painter"

What??? It's an ace in the hole sometimes

*giggles maniacally*

After only a year my kids are over being my model so now I use my kids friends. I post "play date and paint" on facebook and over they come. The parents all know the deal, free face paint and I get to take pictures. One girl comes over and lets me do multiple designs in one session (my current avatar) I love her, I wish I could keep her Or trade one of my boys for her LOL!!

I'm still cool to the other kids, just not my own.

I'm working on DIY-ing a couple photo backgrounds, something colourful for clown parties, Frozen colours for Ice Queen parties, something for minnie mouse parties, and then something for pirate parties. They're all in the works, some will double for multiple costumes. I'll likely make some themed props as well.

The plan is to offer for an additional cost to bring in a second person to set up a small photo station with our photo background and a nice camera with a tripod. I don't have a nice camera at the moment, my last one died. The entertainer in question would wear a Kooky Clowns shirt instead of a costume.

I would draft up a contract with release to post the photos (- possibly just of the birthday child and family, need to look up legality -) on my Facebook page, as a composite image and/or separate images, use them in promotional material, etc. All photos of all guests would be emailed to the client the next business day after their event.

Anyways, it's something on my list of eventual services I would like to offer. Likely won't be putting it into action for at least 6 months, more likely a year.

But if you would like to try something like it yourself, here is my plan and feel free to take inspiration from it!

A company I know has a sign in their facepainting area that says something like 'if you sit in this chair, you agree to be photographed'
They take a pic of every painted face, and post them on facebook in an album per date/event, and every single parent gets a business card that has the facebook link (and business information of course)
It gets them lots of traffic, so I'm thinking about trying that out as well...
considering that they paint a lot less faces per hour, and charge more per hour, I guess the customers don't mind ?

I just had an epiphany ! (boy, that's a hard word when English isn't your first language )

Since I work with an EZ up tall director's chair, maybe it would be an option to make a sort of banner that serves as a background behind the chair...
The banner would be a photo background (with a carefully placed logo perhaps), so the pics would always have the same background?

Hmmm, this needs further pondering

I've found that regular "portrait" photographers don't take good face painting pictures. I'd just study up some more and do it yourself.

Here's an example of a photographers work:


See how they set up a tri-pod and don't get an appropriate angle for face painting. This was a shoot with several different photographers and they all did similar things. I didn't get many good shots.

Here's an example recently. I was so grateful he shot them and captured the painting but they weren't "right" as far as showing off the painting and getting the right angle.



Here's one I shot myself with my good camera:


Here's one I took on a gig:


I got a bunch of great shots when a company hired a photographer for a grand opening. These were action shots and turned out great, he seemed to know how to shoot candid moments (there are a bunch on my website) but I've also had my hubby take some great action shots by just using our good camera:

interesting point, denise, looks like the photograpbers are featuring the face/body, as they should. with mood lighting, too, don't need that

but if you feature the painting, you're closer and part of the face and body are cropped out of view.