The Pressmen as Fake Paparazzi and Event photographers

The Pressmen as Fake Paparazzi and Event photographers

In an earlier article I looked at the concept of Value for Money. In 2013 we are living through a period of austerity where the country if not actually in Recession is suffering a downturn along with many other countries. Clients must consider how they are using their money and whether the service they are buying gives them enough value.

The value I believe is in the blending together of a theatrical experience combined with relevant event photography. Event photography can be categorised in two ways.

The first is the photographer who essentially creates a studio environment on site in the chosen venue. They will arrive with a dedicated backdrop, usually a lighting set up with two lights each with either an umbrella or a soft box. They will adjust the lights to give general lighting that is pleasing to the eye. The lights will fit with getting a good recording of skin tones with neither too much light or to little. The idea in diffusing the light being to reduce shadows which lessens wrinkles and skin issues. The goal is to get a really pleasing portrait that enhances a persons look. Not only this the photographer will aim to get the best angle and the best pose to end up with a photograph that clients like so much they will want a copy.

This type of event photography will also involve having a printer so that prints can be delivered on the night.

In creating the Pressmen we have created a different strategy which is the second type. Our aim is to be like newspaper photographers and capture the best moments in a function. Sometimes this strategy is called reportage or candid photography. Because this method calls for instant judgements it is necessary to have cameras and lenses that are of a very good quality. We cannot afford to have a lag between the moment when we push the shutter release button and the moment the camera actually takes the picture. It is important to understand the way light effects a picture and when to take pictures with just the ambient light and when flash light is needed. We tend to have flash lights that can be separate from the camera in order to be able to create different atmospheres. Light from above,below or from the side. Light from different angles create or reduce shadows which has a major impact on a photograph from simple pleasant light to very dramatic shadows.

But reportage photography involves not only technical issues but also artistic ones.

The photographer who was the of great importance to this tradition of  candid photography talked about the decisive moment. He described it in this way,

"Photography is not like painting," Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever."

This takes study, experience and much practice.

It is the goal of our photography in the pressmen. To capture all the decisive moments. Add all those together and the story of the event is captured. The photographs allow a client to remember all that took place at the event and to be able to relive the experience of the event with all its passion and intense emotion. Even to see things that they may have missed. In other words it is a visual description of that event.

The Pressmen are thus able to produce a veritable feast of images using the art of photojournalism but also with the theatricality of fake Paparazzi or Spoof Paparazzi they can become an essential aspect of what is necessary to make an event work both on the day and to memorialize it for years to come.