Atlanta Hotel Stock Photography – Wedding Photographer in Atlanta

Behind the Scenes: Hotel Stock Photography Shoot from Zac & Betty FengLong Photography on Vimeo.

This week I had the amazing opportunity to do a photoshoot at a hotel in Atlanta. Besides the opportunity to have fun doing what I love (photography), I also had the freedom to basically plan the entire shoot myself. The process started by brainstorming with the client about a way to enhance the Sales process for customers coming to the hotel. As the hotel was a new property with the latest technology, the thought of using an iPad as a demonstration device came up to be able to flip through the photos during a walking presentation with a client.

The next step was to develop the “story” that the photos would tell during the presentation. Showing off gorgeous images on an iPad is one thing, but what is the Sales Manager saying and more importantly what story is he/she telling through the large gorgeous pictures that the client can touch? I came up with approximately 20 rough storyboards of the idea showcasing the key points of service by focusing on the people behind the service. Granted these were NOT the work of an artist, stick figures with crazy doodles to illustrate the point – my paintbrush is my camera. Adding the visual element of rough storyboards really sold the idea and allowed the client to understand the vision I was seeing in my head of the story.

Now we finally get to the fun point, which is actually shooting the images! I brought a fairly basic lighting and shooting set up with me to the hotel on Monday, and I was going to get out of my Canon comfort zone and push myself to shoot with the Nikon!

Gear List:

Nikon D700

Nikon D90 (backup)

SB-900

SB-600

2x 580 EX II

3x Pocket Wizards

2x Light Stands with Umbrellas Mounts and Reversible Umbrellas

14-24mm f/2.8

24-70mm f/2.8

70-700mm f/2.8 VR II

84mm f/1.4

Canon 7D (for video)

50mm f/1.2L

Tripod

Relatively small, right?

On the bright side I can say I shot with each and every lens I brought, so at least I didn’t feel one was a total waste of space or anything like that. The majority of the shots were with simply the large shoot-through umbrella with a SB-900 mounted inside, D700, and the “lazy lens” of the 24-70mm usually at around f/4 or f/5.6. Why is this a lazy lens? It’s just too easy to go from headshot to wide shot with a simple zoom! Nevertheless that’s what makes it such a versatile portrait lens that produces great results time and time again.

The photos took some slight posing of the models (the hotel employees) and lots of repositioning of the lights! This was a great learning experience me to practice Off Camera Flash and to get that nice, soft light that looks great in photos. For some of the location photos like those taken at the train station I went for straight SB-900 mounted on top of the camera but angled at 45 degrees up and away from the model to help soften the light. I didn’t want to lug around the light stand and umbrella but I knew I needed to get the light source away from the model in order to bring out the best light.

The other main part of the photoshoot was to just have fun! Besides our more “serious” and “staged” photos – I really needed to loosen things up a bit. What the photos themselves do not show is the laughing and giggling we did in between shots as my lovely models held poses or got awkwardly close for a better photo. Even though this was more of a commercial shoot compared to portrait photography where we have a ton of fun, I still asked the guys to let loose even in front of the camera and explore their personalities.

Ok so Justin was really the star of the shoot, and not just because he was the star of our story and played the role of the customer checking into the hotel. After getting him to star in the shoot I later found out that this may not have been his first time modeling in front of a camera. He knew just what poses to hold and for how long to hold them, making things just that much easier to work through. Plus, these fun expressions really brought a bit of personality to the presentation and will definitely be a discussion point when the Sales Manager shows this to a client.

Once the shoot was over, I only had the following Tuesday to edit the photos and return them loaded on the iPad by Wednesday. After the initial culling of images to select the very best, I got right to work in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and brought out the details and colors that may have initially been lost in translation from real world to camera sensor. The results were great in my opinion, and most importantly, great in the client’s opinion as well. All in all this was a very fun and rewarding assignment which helped me learn a few things while in the process producing some great images.

See the rest of the images on our website by clicking above of this link back to http://www.FengLongPhoto.com/

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All of the above Nikon and Canon cameras and lenses were rented from http://www.CameraConcierge.com/