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Archive 2015 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization

  
 
vaaccess
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Hey all.

So I volunteer for a non-profit kids musical group that puts on high-quality shows. And I'm trying to come up with creative ways to organize and present the photos.

I end up taking about 800 or so raw photos, but end up with 300 or so "keepers" that I publish to their SmugMug webpage. (that I don't maintain, I don't like they way they organize their photos btw...!)

There are roughly 80 or so kids in each musical, each kid may have up to 3 or 4 costume changes, including face-paint, etc.

Here are a couple of shots just as an example: (I use a 6D with the 70-200/2.8L)
http://cworkstheaterphotos.smugmug.com/Shrek--2014/Shrek-2014/i-rfh3JVS/0/1907x1271/IMG_4865-1907x1271.jpg
http://cworkstheaterphotos.smugmug.com/Shrek--2014/Shrek-2014/i-fJG4PwD/0/1907x1271/IMG_4158-1907x1271.jpg

Previously, they had been organizing pictures by dropping them into folders broken out by act and scene and also by song. I find that task painful and question the value. I'd prefer to look through the photos from beginning to end, instead of going into and out of folders. But, apparently some like the folder structure so they could easily "find their kids", which I guess makes sense.

I shoot in Raw and use Lightroom for processing.

So to start, I'm wondering how others might tackle something like this, any tips of the trade you'd be willing to share?

I considered having an assistant "watch" the pictures download to a laptop (using wireless from the 6D) as I take them, so they could denote the picture number with specific scenes on paper or something. While this could be done after-the-fact, it would be easier to do live. I'm just not sure how practical that is when shooting in RAW.

Then I was thinking...If the goal is to help parents "find" their kids...could I use some face-recognition process to assist? Anyone do something like that? I've really only played with iPhoto or Facebook in that regard, but not attempted anything on a scale like what I'm considering. Is there a solution out there that would assist? And, if so, are there any good mechanisms to deliver that content once faces are identified? In iPhoto you can create albums based on the phases for instance, and you can burn CDs of photos by face, etc. Is there a way to integrate that easily with an online delivery mechanism?

Thanks in advance for your help!



Feb 20, 2015 at 10:52 PM
Mongrel
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Maybe I'm misunderstanding what your trying to do...so I'm not sure exactly why you couldn't do this during the downloading process before processing? When I shot musicals I would shoot from the opening act and I would pretty much know the separation between acts, and the songs that were performed (and who performed them). As long as I used sequential numbering the file names would give me the order of the performance. So the whole performance could be presented in order this way...

Then I would also break it down was by character-everything that Annie sang went into the Annie "master folder"-if I needed to break it down further I would separate the Annie shots by musical number or scene. Whoever "Annie's parents" were could find her easily this way. For lesser roles I would create a folder called "maids" for instance and all the shots of Daddy Warbucks maids would go in that folder etc.

After re-reading this it almost seemed that you were trying to do this on the fly (reference to wifi), then I re-read it again (lol) and you said you are uploading your "keepers" to their smugmug page... I'm curious-who sets up the folders on their smugmug page-them or you?

When I was doing this I was using Breeze Browser Pro and I got real good/fast at dumping stuff into folders during the initial culling process. I'm not sure I'd be as comfortable or efficient at it using the Lightroom cataloging process. Maybe you could consider using a different cataloging software to speed up the process?








Feb 21, 2015 at 01:13 PM
Mongrel
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Just some more thoughts... Looks like the shots are from "Shrek" so...

Gallery-SHREK

Folder #1 Ensemble Numbers (opening/closing numbers etc.)
Folder #2 Shrek (ALL Shrek solo shots go here. Shrek 1 Shrek 2 if multiple actors are used)
Folder #3 Theona (ALL Theona solo shots go here etc.)
Folder #4 Donkey
Folder #5....

You get the drift...



Feb 21, 2015 at 01:24 PM
vaaccess
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Mongrel wrote:
Just some more thoughts... Looks like the shots are from "Shrek" so...

Gallery-SHREK

Folder #1 Ensemble Numbers (opening/closing numbers etc.)
Folder #2 Shrek (ALL Shrek solo shots go here. Shrek 1 Shrek 2 if multiple actors are used)
Folder #3 Theona (ALL Theona solo shots go here etc.)
Folder #4 Donkey
Folder #5....

You get the drift...


Thanks for your input and re-reading my post, sorry if it was confusing!

No, I don't set up the folder scheme on their SmugMug page. Though foldering could certainly be done and has been for previous shows.

However, I don't like using folders in that way because it messes with the cohesiveness of the musicals timeline. That said, I recognize their desire to quickly find the pictures a parent is looking for versus scrolling through all of the pictures.

In general, beyond my photography work, I prefer to work with indexes and keywords instead of using folders. How I do that with my photographs is what I'm grappling with. For me, using folders segments things too much and I end up clicking up/down through folders looking for something and I find it quite frustrating. I'd rather have everything in one place and then I can search as needed.

Maybe I'm being too bullheaded about this. But, in an ideal and perfect world, the photos I used as an example would be tagged with each character that was in the photo. Then, at the gallery level I could filter on "Pinocchio" and all pictures that had Pinocchio in it would be displayed.



Feb 21, 2015 at 01:41 PM
vaaccess
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Mongrel wrote:
After re-reading this it almost seemed that you were trying to do this on the fly (reference to wifi), then I re-read it again (lol) and you said you are uploading your "keepers" to their smugmug page...


The Wifi comment was just an idea...Not sure how well that would work, though.



Feb 21, 2015 at 01:44 PM
Mongrel
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Didn't you just answer your own question? Tagging by character/musical number etc.?

That sounds WAY better than the way I used to do it-only hitch may be getting people to utilize the search by tag function. I haven't done this since around 2010 and people should be more familiar with it by now.

I agree breaking down the show into all those "compartments" (folders) is aggravating and does ruin the cohesiveness of it.

As for adding tags-I believe a cataloging program like Breeze Browser (windows only) or Photomechanic (works with windows and mac) may be faster than adding tags in Lightroom, but I can't be certain because I've never used Lightroom for this and have only started using it about a month ago.

Not sure how facial recognition software would work as I've never used it. Perhaps someone will stop by who has.

Bottom line I think tagging should work great if you communicate search via tag to your parents...



Feb 21, 2015 at 02:17 PM
Mongrel
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Oh-I forgot to mention that those are some great shots you displayed...

But they do increase my lust for a 6D unfortunately...




Feb 21, 2015 at 02:19 PM
vaaccess
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Mongrel wrote:
Oh-I forgot to mention that those are some great shots you displayed...

But they do increase my lust for a 6D unfortunately...



Yeah...This was with my 50D. The lens is certainly a key factor, but the full-frame and high ISO / low noise makes the 6D buttery-awesome.

http://cworkstheaterphotos.smugmug.com/Other-7/Opening-Scene/Willy-Wonka-2014/i-GCpJrtr/0/X3/IMG_0033-X3.jpg



Feb 21, 2015 at 04:11 PM
vaaccess
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Mongrel wrote:
Didn't you just answer your own question? Tagging by character/musical number etc.?

As for adding tags-I believe a cataloging program like Breeze Browser (windows only) or Photomechanic (works with windows and mac) may be faster than adding tags in Lightroom, but I can't be certain because I've never used Lightroom for this and have only started using it about a month ago.

Not sure how facial recognition software would work as I've never used it. Perhaps someone will stop by who has.

Bottom line I think tagging should work great if you communicate search via tag to your parents...


Yeah, so the question is...How can I do this quickly/efficiently?



Feb 21, 2015 at 04:14 PM
friscoron
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization



Honestly, I think it's a lot of work for what you'll get out of it. I shoot a lot of dance and I organize my online folders with the full dance as a master, and then each individual dance as sub-folders. I'm not going to keyword each dancer or anything close to that. The parents and dancers know where to look.

Also, if you're going to do this, you'll also want to be seated in the center of the theatre. Shooting from the side is just not ideal. Just my two cents.



Feb 21, 2015 at 04:31 PM
vaaccess
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Agree with you on the location, friscoron.

The auditorium has a balcony and on the main level has the director's booth directly behind the audience. We contemplated having me do it from the director's booth, but we'd have to crack the window open and they were concerned about their directing being too noisy for the crowd.

The first shots I posted were taken from the main level, but slightly off to the side. I think that's much better than the Willy Wonka angle I had posted previously. When I moved to the 6D it's """silent""" shutter reduced the noise enough to allow me to stand directly behind the audience (but off to the side) without any real distraction. Whereas before (as shown in the Willy Wonka picture) they had wanted me up in the balcony and to the side.

Anyway...

Right now they want me to break the photos into folders, as I had mentioned. I certainly don't want to go crazy and do something that will create even more work for me...just trying to investigate the options.



Feb 21, 2015 at 04:58 PM
Neddie Seagoon
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


You can add captions/keywords to photos right in smugmug. You need to be the administrator to do it and, yes tagging 300 photos would take some time. Maybe you could coordinate with the admin and divy up the tagging chore. I do it in Lightroom as I'm down selecting but I don't publish 300 photos per production.

As for getting folks to search via the tags, just tell the parents to ask their kids to do it. Them youngsters have forgotten more about photo tagging than we'll ever know!

Oh, and if you can arrange to shoot during a dress rehearsal, that would be ideal for access as there are no constraints on your location.



Feb 21, 2015 at 05:56 PM
Mongrel
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Re: Shooting position...

Not sure you have the time or what the scheduling is like but I always shot the dress rehearsals with full access (including use of an 8ft. ladder center stage is necessary and for cast shots). This gave me the full effect of lighting, costumes, etc. without the restriction of an audience. As these were MS/HS productions there's a lot more flexibility than pro or semi-pro productions I'm sure... My best shots (obviously) were taken from onstage or from a ladder at eye level with the actors...

For the night of the show I had seats reserved in the front row, but you wind up with too many "up your nose shots" unless shooting wide. I could also shoot from the back but even with a Canon 200 f/2.8 or Sigma 120-300mm f/2.8 and my trusty 20D the shots were less than ideal under theater lighting. The 6D should handle this situation MUCH better...lol



Feb 21, 2015 at 06:10 PM
vaaccess
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


regarding positioning...

The shows occur over two weekends, dress on Friday afternoon, first live audience Friday night, 2 or 3 shows Saturday and 2 on Sunday. The dress rehearsal would be open for me to shoot whenever/wherever, but they have been resistant to having the "production" shots during that show since they are still working on makeup/costumes. I may ask them again because I do much prefer that.

During live-audience shows, I can only take photos in the back of the main level (off to the side), or in the balcony at an extreme angle. No shots can be taken from the audience and photos are prohibited by everyone but the designated photographer.

That said, on what is effectively the cat-walk level there's a light booth and I'm going to shoot SOME shots from up there this time around, but it will be super high (a level above the top of the balcony) so I'm not sure what I'll get. If nothing else I'm hoping I can get a cool perspective of the final "bow"...

BTW...Sometimes they don't do it at this big auditorium. They did have Charlotte's Web in an auditorium last year that didn't have a balcony and I got to shoot in the Crow's nest with the lighting guys. LOVED that position!
http://cworkstheaterphotos.smugmug.com/Charlottes-WebSpring-2014/Charlottes-Web/i-nK4xLZf/0/1907x1271/IMG_1789-1907x1271.jpg



Feb 21, 2015 at 06:45 PM
vaaccess
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Neddie Seagoon wrote:
You can add captions/keywords to photos right in smugmug. You need to be the administrator to do it and, yes tagging 300 photos would take some time. Maybe you could coordinate with the admin and divy up the tagging chore. I do it in Lightroom as I'm down selecting but I don't publish 300 photos per production.


Thanks Neddie. I also have my own SmugMug account and haven't played with it yet. IDEALLY...I'd like to embed the keywords in EXIF data while in Lightroom (or maybe another product) and then that info will be with the photos wherever they go. I haven't played with SmugMug to see how it can/can't accept that information as keywords for searching...Hoping it can.



Feb 21, 2015 at 06:48 PM
Neddie Seagoon
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Yes, it can. Lightroom keywords, metadata title and caption. All searchable within smugmug.


Feb 21, 2015 at 07:26 PM
Steve Wylie
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


Sorry for getting to this post late (I've had seven days of intensive shooting over the past eight days). I shoot a lot of live performances, and I started tagging years ago, and quit very shortly thereafter. Tagging every performer in a scene is a total waste of time, and making it convenient for parents and others to simply find their kid, to the exclusion of showing the performance in its totality, in my opinion ruins the viewing experience.

I also note that you're not the "official photographer" for these productions. So what's the deal? What does the "official photographer" do, and what happens with his/her photos?? Are you competing with him/her?



Feb 24, 2015 at 03:26 AM
mitchel674
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Advice Needed - Musical/Play Photo Organization


I do something similar and cannot imagine why you are so concerned about their viewing experience and ease of access to specific photos. You are volunteering to take these photos (good on you). Don't waste your valuable time trying to catalog these. Just put them up in the order taken. It won't take long for parents or the kids to scroll through 300 shots and find what they are looking for. Plus, they will likely enjoy seeing the entire batch.

Keep it simple.



Feb 24, 2015 at 08:36 AM





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