I had one of the most enjoyable times ever shooting T&I tonight when I shot the cheer squads for one of my travel football leagues. The girls ranged from 4-14 and the excitement they had was contagious. Many thanks to Tim Gangloff for his help and willingness to share information on lighting, posing, etc. They aren't perfect, but I am very happy with how everything turned out. Very little PP. IQ and exposure looked great right out of camera. I know I will have a couple hundred happy parents when this product is delivered. Hope you guys enjoy.
Billy these are very nice. I'm sure the parents and league will be very happy with them. Wondering if you can give some details on the shoot.
Where were they shot....in a gym?
How many total did you shoot?
How long to set up each pose?
Was your bg seamless?
Were you the only shooter and how many helpers did you have?
Thanks for all the comments and questions. Here are the details.
These were shot in a gymnasium. I used a white 9x20 seamless turned sideways and clamped to my stands on the top and bottom. I left it just barely hanging to touch the floor. I went to Lowe's and purchased 6 of the 4'x8' white panel boards and I had them cut them down to 4'x4' squares so I could easily maneuver them in my Durango for shoots. This does create a little more PP work, but it is real simple to fix a seam as opposed to cloning in a white floor.
There are 100 girls total in this cheer organization that cheer for all the travel teams ages 5-14. I broke them up into 2 different nights, so I probably shot approximately 50 girls last night and will shoot 50 more tomorrow night. This was the first time I offered a "multi-pose" photo shoot for T&I, and the only reason I did it was because it was cheer. I offered 4 different poses for them to choose from and I would say 85% of the girls only picked 1 of the 4 poses because they ordered standard products (5x7, 8x10, wallets, standard memory mate, etc.). The other product that I offered was the Deluxe Memory Mate or a custom poster. These girls had all 4 poses taken and will be used in those products.
For the most part, I would estimate that 85% of the girls took around a minute to pose and shoot and the other 15% between 2-3 minutes total for the multiple poses. I had one of the cheer coaches assisting me with all the posing, fixing hair, bows, etc. and this worked very well. 2 People working the registration and sales table and I was the only photographer with one assistant. Total time at shoot 3 hours. A little over 90 minutes of that was spent doing the shoot, the rest was setting up and tearing down. I was the only one setting up because I left early enough that I didn't get caught in traffic.
All in all, it was a very succesful shoot and I hope tomorrow night goes as smooth as last night did. As far as the digital frames are concerned, I have had these for a while and can't even remember where I got them, but I basically had to start from scratch and re-build them in order to make them fully customizable to the leagues that I shoot. I try to color coordinate and implement logos when I can.
Well done Billy. You kicked it up a notch. Thanks for sharing your results! I like the custom memory mates and 8x10. The only small thing I had to do with my girls is hit the bottoms of their shoes with an exposure brush in Lightroom to try to hide some of the dirt that the bottoms of their shoes seemed to attract. Some girls had nice, clean shoes and some were a mess. I like the use of the clean, white helmet. Is that one from league or a prop? It looks immaculate and I wish I'd used a clean one like that.
Billy these look really good, my only critique is the amount of spill you have coming from your background lights. You might consider some barn doors or something to forget that spill, or move them further forward if possible.
Matt
Oh and are your templates bought or did you make them? I really like them.
Nicely done! That's a great idea about the flooring. The helmet you used as a prop, did they bring it or was it your's? I noticed no logo on it. Your shoot time was very manageable for a group that size with the multiple poses.
How did you mange the products offered & the orders, did you do pre-pay from the order envelope, on-line??
Tim - I had to do the same thing with the bottoms of the shoes. I just used the dodge tool (mid-tones) at about 30-40% with a soft brush in PS and it worked great. As far as the helmet is concernedm it is an official league helmet. I asked the equipment manager for 3 nice, clean helmets for the shoot and he kindly obliged. This particular league does not use stickers on their helmets....something about their Riddell rep. tols them if they put decals on them it would void the warranty or some crap. I fing it hard to beieve, but I rolled with it anyway.
Matt - Thanks for the crit. and I completely agree, especially with the groups. I had them already posed and the back row ended up just a bit too close to the backdrop. I re-positioned the backdrop lights, but it still only helped a little bit. If I had barn doors it would have helped. The templates were purchased online sometime ago but I had to re-build them from the ground up basically.
Thanks Jeff! I am hoping the next session will yield even better results. I'll post the final numbers after I am finished with the entire league, but so far these are some of my best numbers of the year.
Ralph - See my my explanation about the helmet above. Also, all of the products were on display at the sales table and I had 2 girls working it and taking order forms. Everything was paid for on-site and all poses were chosen at this time as well. I had samples with 'POSE 1' 'POSE2', etc on them and they just let my girls know which pose they would like. I will post some buddy shot soon.
Billy, as info, we had the same issue with light spilling on the last row. we really did not see it at the time, but have learned to use a bigger "stage" if you will, so that when we have bigger teams, they don't get too close to the backdrop and don't get the spill. We chalked it up to lessons learned and will try to do better next time. It's amazing how much I learned by doing it this way.
Billy... these are beautiful. Your posing is top notch too. The team arrangement is great. I reached a level of frustration with white seamless last year. Was getting to the point where it wasn't worth the time and effort anymore. But, you have inspired me to try it again. Great job bro!
Billy, thanks for posting the buddy shots, yes they take a lot of time, but at least you know they are going to sell! I did some cheer (outside w/the football team) earlier this week, One cheerleader wanted a buddy shot w/ four of her friends (it was almost the whole team!), The moms saw the photo (no props harsh lighting... just cute girls) being taken and all added to their order. I ended up with about $60 extra from that shot. So I'll take the buddies . That's why I usually run a separate cheer station on my football shoots.
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. That's why I usually run a separate cheer station on my football shoots.