We recently start to offer Photo Booths at weddings. It was so much fun! Photos were printed in 12 seconds. All the digital files are available for download by the wedding guests. Here's some fun pics

Cool idea, but isn't there a risk of all guest disappearing during reception to check out the booth?

I find this idea and others of a similar nature like throw away cameras on the dining tables, very interesting. The reason is because they're all opportunities for photographic activity which photographers in general simply aren't fulfilling, leaving it to the clients themselves or bright entrepreneurs like Taky..

Just as we offer clients the loan of a small video camera for their honeymoon and convert the chip-full, unedited to a DVD, why aren't photographers taking ownership of these ideas?

Why aren't they setting up booths, why aren't they offering to manage the throwaway cameras?

The usual answer it seems to me is that too many are only interested in doing their traditional job (a nineteenth century job I should add) and not changing and developing their offering the meet the demands of their 21st century clients. For example, how many have invested in a Fuji 3D camera and offered a selection of 3D portraits? How many have even invested a few dollars in a Stereo Realist and done a roll of stereo pairs? A roll of film (how many of them even remember film?) forty cardboard mounts, a 50c viewer and 30 minutes work and they have an edge over their competitors.

I wonder if the photog would get upset?

I've thought about doing the same thing for video - a booth for guest best wishes - anybody done something like this?

Paul, two questions, two answers:

1 So what if he cares. If he doesn't do it why shouldn't someone else. The only problem might arise when Taky and the photographer are providing photo booths.

2 Many in the UK already do but frankly whilst a photo of daft faces can be amusing, hours of drunken daftness isn't. Because we come from a 30 year background of interviewing and for a period, teaching people to interview, we include our "signature" interviews with the close family and friends. These are one-to-one, revealing without being intrusive and valued by every client. But there's a knack and the cop out is the video booth.

These are, as always, merely my opinions and what do I know?

Hi Paul

I have a similar event at all my weddings. I finish the photoshoot long before the photog so I then go to the reception and do little interviews with the guests having pre-dinner drinks.
It's actually a good time to do it as well as they are not drunk yet and are usually relaxing at the venue prior to the evening getting underway.

Always goes down well with my brides but then again if you are shooting in a cinematic style it spoils the mood. All my weddings are done documentary style so the guest interviews, comments and advice to the couple fit in well and brides love them!!

I have actually had a bride ask me for a specific video booth during the reception so when the guests have finished eating they can come to a central area and say their piece. It is, however the first time a client has asked for a specific "booth session" ... it is concerning (which Philip has already mentioned) that if it's well into the evening you might get a few intoxicating remarks. I would say that maybe as soon as the guests are seating and the bride arrives, one could contemplate a video booth session?????

Chris

Many in the UK already do but frankly whilst a photo of daft faces can be amusing, hours of drunken daftness isn't.

Been there, done that.. and never ever again. Fun at start untill the guests are drunk, my video booth was unmanned and when I viewed the footage the day after I aged a few year seach time :) It's no fun seeing guests putting sigarette tips against the camera lens, spilling beer over the booth or climbing on the booth because they think it's cool to show themselves upside down in front of the lens. Also the constant silly drunk dancing in front of the camera got really annoying after a while.

This was one of the reasons I decided not to offer it anymore, it was extremely populair though but it was hurting my business as people only hired the videobooth instead of a weddingvideo and since I can charge much more for that last one the decission was made quickly to stop with it.

The videobooth serves as a Guinea pigs house now and thats more fun too watch.

I wonder if the photog would get upset?

I've thought about doing the same thing for video - a booth for guest best wishes - anybody done something like this?

It sounds like a good idea.. But I always do my interview personally. Through the process, there're lots of funny footage goes to the bloopers chapter. the B&G always appreciate the extra effort that I make everybody talk.

.... The only problem might arise when Taky and the photographer are providing photo booths.



It would not happen as the client has to pay for photo booth. So it's very unlikely they will pay for 1 photobooth from the photographer and another one from the videographer.

What brand photobooth did you end up purchasing?

We built our own photo booth =).. so it's LA Color Brand =)

Taky,
I would rent one from you, but the shipping to Florida might get expensive.......

I wonder if the photog would get upset?

I've thought about doing the same thing for video - a booth for guest best wishes - anybody done something like this?

Upset? The photographers are too busy offering photo/video fusion and cutting into our field.

I asked a couple different photographers what they thought and they were all for it. Really, I don't think it hurts their business at all.

I don't know how pressured photographers think they are but how about these?

a) at a wedding a couple of weeks back, the photographer spent the first couple of hours of the evening event projecting images from the afternoon wedding on to a make-shift screen in the bar and selling prints he ran off there and then on an Epson printer.

b) at last weekend's wedding the "lady" photographer yelled from the first floor window from which she took the whole group shot that she would be taking orders fro any guest later in the bar.

c) at another, a guest who (according to the visiting cards she spread around the tables at the wedding breakfast) claimed to be a wedding photographer herself, took shots of other guests on a small Fuji SLR. printed them at her table on a compact HP printer and made them up in plastic keyring fobs which she sold for £3 a throw!

I've thought of doing the "photo bar" thing, allowing instant gratification, but you need a CREW to do it properly... someone needs to "man" the printer to help guests print their or your photos on the spot, and keep the printer(s) working.

Phil, those two examples, a and c are rather scary IMO, a took the photog away from their primary JOB, and c just sounds like a party crashing mooch... if I were the photog and ran into such a thing, there might have been some accidental "equipment malfunction" - I can't imagine how much nerve it took for someone to "work the room" on someone else's big day.

In the end, vendors who forget the job they were hired to do won't likely be vendors for too terribly long, no matter how clever their "gimmick".

my photography friends actually have been doing this since last year and its very popular. I've helped them in several gigs already and there pretty fun to do. Many people are right that it tends to take away from the whole event however my friends actually found a way to solve that. What they do is actually close down the photobooth during specific time when the photographers need the b&g's attention or when there's a first dance, or something of that sort. Also, it gives the photobooth a chance to rest since it does get hectic. We've had lines that almost go around half of the building.

Check out their site if you guys want.

VC Productions (http://www.vcpphotos.com/index2.php#/featured/)

Chris, it's always fun to look at those photobooth photos. I checked VC productions site, it doesn't look like that's a "booth" :)

looks like a really BIG booth!

yup its more like a studio.

They can market it as "Hollywood Red Carpet".. since people are all glamorous. It's more fun that way.

Hi Taky, that was actually already discussed. Not truly sure what they'll do.

my photography friends actually have been doing this since last year and its very popular. I've helped them in several gigs already and there pretty fun to do. Many people are right that it tends to take away from the whole event however my friends actually found a way to solve that. What they do is actually close down the photobooth during specific time when the photographers need the b&g's attention or when there's a first dance, or something of that sort. Also, it gives the photobooth a chance to rest since it does get hectic. We've had lines that almost go around half of the building.

Check out their site if you guys want.

VC Productions (http://www.vcpphotos.com/index2.php#/featured/)

I've been doing the photo booth rental thing for the past 6 months, so I'm pretty new as well. But we found that if the photo booth is strategically placed in the reception hall, somewhere not totally out of the way in the hallway or something - like by the bar, near the dance floor, we found that it keeps all the guests in the same room.

With the huge lineups too waiting for their turn to get into the photo booth, if they're near the dance floor they often end up dancing right there in the line! It really gets the party started.

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