I'm currently shooting sporting events and in researching what's on, I'm finding a lot of different festivals and special events which pull large crowds. Unfortunately they are not within my business model atm but I would like to investigate something that would work for general gatherings.
I'd like to set something up in a stall that would attract people to come and be photographed and I could print the pics out for them like I do at the events I cover now only create the photo op myself.
Last week when on holidays, I went to an amusement park with the kids and they had Photographers all around the place in little area's taking shots of the kids holding a baby crock or with a bird sitting on their shoulder or with a Koala etc. I have seen Pics taken of people on roller coasters etc in much the same way.
The pics were put on walls near the exit and I was amazed to see the number of people buying them. They certainly had a huge uptake and must have been making the park a real tidy sum.
There are places in tourist locations where you dress up like a cowboy in the old west etc but these all tend to be in shop locations, not something that is taken on the road so to speak.
I have never seen anything "Portable" like this at general events here at a market or festival but I imagine there may be something in the US of the sort of thing I'm looking to do ( not with animals) .
Has anyone seen anything like this or have any ideas for something that could be easily set up where there are crowds that would be good for selling instant delivery Pics?
I've seen a few of these setups at public events I've attended. I usually stop and chat, though I don't mention I'm a shooter. More often than not, they tore down early and left due to lack of business. YMMV.
Yes, there are some companies out there that are creating their own photo booth.
Take a P&S or consumer DLSR, hook up a industrial type release cable, tether it to a computer which is running software to automatically print out on the attached printer.
I did this many years ago at a friends birthday party - just wrote a script to monitor a directory, print out whatever shows up in there and move it out so it doesn't get printed again. But it was a one-off, nothing commercial.
I work with a company that had made one - they rent it out at parties where they do the lighting and sound. It's just a perk for their customer. They key is in the software - being able to get the image, print it, and move on. Also, making sure the printer works, prints come out, etc... And to make it all ruggedized, so party goers don't try to "make it work" by brute force, etc...
Opportunity? Like anything else... if you find the right market.
I was thinking more along the lines of some sort of propped setup where i made my own " event" that I could setup wherever there was a crowd and people would want to come and have a pic taken for the novelty value.
I have seen pics where they have a few props where they take pics coming off cruise ships and at fun parks etc and was wondering if anyone creates their own photo ops like this as a stand alone Biz but perhaps not or precious few.
I have read of what you describe and it would be interesting to try. I do have some reservations with it although hard to say.
It seems to me that there are a lot of people in the US that make having regular family portraits taken a priority. I haven't seen that here in Oz, then again kids are always taking crappy snaps with their phones so if this was spun the right way there may be something in it.
One of my photographers has their wedding coming up, it may be interesting to set a booth and see how it goes.
Any particular software you recommend or did you write your own?
glort wrote:
Any particular software you recommend or did you write your own?
My instant booth was just some scripting in DOS. Can't remember specifics, but something like:
- watch folder (that camera is tethering to)
- every 20 seconds, get list of files in directory
- if some are found, print said filenames (not sure if I used windows print, or some other DOS capable scripted program like ImageMagick )
- then move files to another folder so they don't get printed again.
- loop
I think there are other softwares out there that will do pretty much that. I don't know them off hand - as most things we do are custom programmed to do exactly what we need at maximum efficiency - and then can be tuned later.
"DSLR Remote Pro" software from Breeze Systems is worth looking at. I haven't used it for anything other than basic tethered shooting, but it includes a fairly sophisticated "photo booth mode" which seems to be designed for the kind of thing you want to do:
I'm a semi-pro, and I still buy shots at events when they are good. Not good as in exposure, focus, perfect lighting, but good as in my wife and I look like we're having fun getting on a ride, off a ship or whereever the thing may be. I'd only buy one per year as we're only places like that very rarely, but the reason we'd buy it is to remember the location, remember how we looked and that we were having fun.
Look for places that have this factor, and that you can work. One of them for us was in Cairns, when we got onto the tour boat that brought us out to the great barrier reef, and when we got back he had every couple's / family's shot printed and waiting. Cannot recall the price but it was cheap, 10 or 15 dollars I think. I think he sold over half of them.
)