Night Club Photography tutorial

how to make money shooting parties

Night photography is many time overlooked as a photography significant style and also a possible reliable source of income . Not only shooting party is a great way to use your camera skills and lighting knowledge but also you can increase your exposure as a photographer, have an income and use a great marketing exercise. Also you can have fun in the same time.

I have photographed costume parties in night clubs few times before and I can say it is not every day that you can photograph over 1000 people in 4 hours. I have counted the photos and i have delivered over 800 of them per night and measuring an average 2-4 people in a photo, you do the math. I have never believed that people will make long queues to get their photograph, but taken into consideration the environment where everyone is in an absolute fun mode, with few beers on board, you will never believe what happens in front of the camera after few hours. I cannot show the wildest ones as I do not to wish to show people over the reasonable limit of decency appropriate for this forum.

Tips for night club photography

If you ever are considering doing this, here are few tips from someone with experience, including pros, cons and few words of advice

- Night photography is a great way to take a lot of photos of a lot of people in a very short period of time. You need to have a lot of business cards handy as some of them will ask for it

- It is an easy way to increase your exposure as a photographer. Your website or facebook account will have traffic going through the roof the next day when you publish those photos and people will start tagging themselves. Of course you put all the photos with your logo on them and some of them will drag them and make therm their profile photos. Some of those people might contact you for other jobs. Having 1000 people photographed in one night will surely create few sparks in your business

- you can have also fun as well and you will never believe that people might drag you into their play

- easy set up – no worries about camera settings and equipment. I have taken 2 studio lights with me and use them with a wireless trigger. No background will be appropriate as it will be trashed immediately. Remember, you are dealing with sober/drunk people. They step of everything without looking so you need to ensure your cables are secured and you location inside the club is strategically selected to make a flow of people that will not interfere with your set up. It is really important and safety is one important issue. Remember to have a valid public liability insurance. In regards to camera settings, manual mode, ISO 100, Shutter speed 1/125 and F between 5 and 11. Obviously you need to test it on site.

If you are considering walking around with your camera and the flash towards the ceiling and lifted bouncing card, you might not have the same result from 2 reasons:

1- people love a red carpet experience and this is what attracts them to your temporary set up location

2- nightclubs do not have white ceilings making the bouncing idea useless. if the have mirror surfaces, they are going to damage your exposure. They are usually dark paint finishes and it won’t help

Where are the money coming from?

- You need to make win-win arrangements with the venue and either you can get paid directly for providing them the photos, or share somehow your profits. It is up to you how you want to deal with this issues, but no venue will allow you to make money without any advantages to them.

- some people will like to order prints later, not a lot, but there are always few. You have the opportunity to close some sales if you have an online ordering system on your website. I am using a Photocrati theme for one subsection of my WordPress website and it is easy to set up. You do not need to be an IT geek to be able to set it up yourself. I will probably do another video in more detail, but remember, the theme will allow you to upload pictures, prices, and create order forms connected to your Paypal account which you need as well obviously.

- having your logo watermaked on your photos when displayed on websites and social media will get your later few paid jobs, weddings, babies, family photography or other night club jobs. Watermarking your photos in bulk will be asubject to a different tutorial

Few aspect you need to think about:

- if you want to make this your permanent job, this is night activity Friday and Saturday night

- make sure your equipment does not get damaged as people do not pay attention in a club

- make sure you have public liability insurance in case some get injured due to your presence.

- make sure your agreement with the venue is clear in terms of copyright

- in terms of model release forms it is reasonable unpractical to ask everyone for a signature, but they are aware and they will ask where the photos will be displayed and they will not mind being on facebook, especially you do not force anyone to get photographed.

For them it is fun and games, for your it is a serious business

I hope you enjoyed these tips, here are some images from few of my night club photography experiences. You will see me as well, as there will be always a bunch of people demanding you will get photographed with them.