Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Prom Photobooth


Okay without a doubt the best idea for the party was the prom photobooth. Not only was it fun it meant we actually got pictures of the guests and what people were wearing on the night. I had planned to have one camera set up for the photobooth and with my other camera, take random photos of the night. That second camera ended up with only a handful of photos on it, proving that if you're having a good time/drinking you tend not to take as many photos as you would have liked. The photobooth meant that I did get pictures, gave people a fun activity and judging by all the Facebook comments was an overall success :)


You can see my curled hair attempts. When I first unwrapped my hair rags it was bad 80s fro happening but not in the "so bad it's good" more just "yikes that's crazy" bad. I ended up pulling most of my hair back except my fringe and we were onto a winner!


I'm going to give you guys a quick run through of the set up if you ever want to do something similar in the future. I ended up buying 2 metres of some awesome silver fabric from spotlight (chain fabric store) for around $20. I also did some seriously googling beforehand to avoid other errors people had made for their DIY booths. One thing I noticed were some people's photos were let down because of badly draped fabric, so I stapled gun the fabric tight to the wall to avoid this (obsessive - yup just a little).



I set up my camera on a tripod, a couple of metres out from the wall. For those wanting to know, I used the following camera settings (35mm lens on my 5d mark ii body/ ISO 200 / fstop 3.2 / shutter 1/80). Looking back, they were semi risky settings (although 99% of the photos came out) just to be a bit safer next time I think I would use a higher fstop like f5, bump the ISO up and then have a faster shutter speed to avoid any potential blur and make sure everyone was in focus. 



I did a test run the previous night to figure out the lighting - I wasn't sure which would work better flash or studio lights.  Turns out flash looked really cheap, so I bought in a pair of studio lights and when I say studio lights I really mean, those outdoor flood lights :P  They're great though, nice and cheap ($30 ish) and they capable of putting out a good amount of light. There only downside is they become super hot, so instead of pointing them directly at people we aimed them up at our white (not so high) roof which in turn gave off a nice spread of lighting onto the area.



I set my camera to manual focus (I manually focused the area where people would stand) and drew chalk circles around the tripod just in case someone moved it accidentally so they knew where to put the tripod back. I was trying to search for bricks the morning of the party to secure the tripod down but didn't have any luck. Luckily there were no drunken camera knock overs! I also drew on the floor, using chalk, the area that people needed to stand in to appear in shot. People generally kept to this but for larger groups there was spill over. I think next time maybe getting four metres of fabric and making the area much bigger would be perfect and then I would just use a wider lens to get everything in :) Knowing people probably wouldn't keep to that tiny box, I put a roll of balloons down either side of the backdrop and I'm really glad I did this because it framed the photos nicely. I also liked the a few random balloons floating along the ground :)



I put my camera onto timer mode - the two seconds option, stuck a box onto the tripod which I labelled "remote box - please return" and when people arrive I gave them a quick run through of how to work the set up. I also had printed instructions stuck to the tripod leg but I'm not sure how many people read this, so I think it's great to physically show some people how to work the camera so they can then pass their knowledge on.


The best thing I did though and which took around two days was drawing up a bunch of poses people could do. I was thinking when I'm in front of a camera myself and have to do something zany that I find it hard to come up with original poses. I also wanted there to be a variety of shots, rather than people just standing and smiling. All up there were around 25 different pose types and people really ran with them and then even further, which I loved :)


So that was pretty much it, I checked the camera a few times during the night to make sure everything was on check, once there was a chair in shot so I'd advised not to have anything people can accidentally push into frame though in saying that when the chair was actually used those photos came out really fun - lots of good levels :) 175 photos were taken during the night all up - so wise words are to use a big memory card in your camera and have the battery charged and ready to go :)


I'm so glad people also got Gremlin on board, he was such a champ at the party, a little social butterfly except for all those hours he spent asleep on the couch :)

One of the poses I drew was "pulling the tie" and was so happy that a few people did this one!

That's me, cracking my head off with laughter, yup it was a good night!

 It was also really fun to get to go through all the photos the next day and see my friends being silly and awesome :)


The chair coming into effect, also I didn't mind how the camera cut people off not being inside the chalk square, so maybe I'd even keep the shoot area small like that if I was attempted it again :)


I did have to adjust the colour to be a bit cooler in LR (or photoshop) due to the flood lights being quite yellow and I did a bit of sharpening, cropping and lightening but very minimal - so editing was a breeze


I wasn't sure if the chalk outline on the floor visible in the photos was bad or daggy bad but cool? Maybe you could make it less obvious by just having corner marks?


One of my best friends ever Emaya (on the right) flew up especially from Melbourne which was the nicest thing ever and needs a huge shoutout - thanks Emaya!! Her present was also amazing which I'll share when I do my birthday haul.

Three's a crowd (sure is) - tee hee!

 I love that people really ran the poses especially expression wise!

The fun thing about having a prom party was the more awkward expression the better which is good for me because I can definitely do awkward :)

That left photo is gold, unintentional awkwardness at it's finest!

I told you guys about how we were having prom King and Queen well at some point in the night after DJ Daz announced voting was closing I hid in our bedroom and counted the votes, everyone afterwards said it was crazy I didn't expect to win but honestly it wasn't until counting the votes I had a thought that perhaps I shouldn't be counting them because our names were coming up a lot!

I'll never forget the crowing moment it was like out of a movie, I still think about it and smile so crazy hard, it was definitely the highlight to my night - oh and everyone made a little tunnel for us to walk through and then we had a slow dance song and then the balloon drop (and then and then and then :P) but seriously so magical - straight out of the movies :)

As Ben said we had constructed this little fake World but at some point it felt like it was an actual prom :)

Lowie took out prom dancer, very deserving win :)

And I got to hang out with awesome people who made my night extra special :)

Oh and I got to slow dance with this guy to the best/worst song ever - vitamin d's friend's forever :)

Tomorrow I'm sharing the handful of photos I did manage to take of the night!

26 comments:

  1. lol, these are brilliant. I think I may have to have a photo booth too whenever I'm going to have another party :)

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  2. these photos are so great! you did an awesome job on the tacky background! looks like it was an awesome night :-)

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    1. Thanks Emily it really was, I got super sad when it was all over actually - lol!

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  3. Oh man! These photos are awesome! Looks like you all had a blast! :)

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  4. this is awesome! the balloons turned out great! the photobooth was really a brilliant idea, fee! :) what were some of the more memorable songs that played this night? i am totally listening to 80s songs while i work out. i am so hooked on head to toe by lisa lisa and cult jam :)

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    1. :) Thanks Jane the one that was stuck in my head the morning after was the backstreet boys back song "backstreet back o' yeah!" lol. I think we were stuck more in the 90s with song choice, which is never a bad thing!

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    2. def not a bad thing! omg that backstreet back o'yeah - we used to have that on repeat in college when we would spend our days drinking, playing games and ordering a lot of hot chicken wings! :)

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  5. Wow. The photos all look great and you can tell that everyone had a fantastic time! Hooray!

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    1. And I like that even after a week and a bit, later, people are still commenting on the photos in facebook - makes me smile :)

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  6. Oh my gosh--- what an amazing fun idea! I definitely am going to steal it :)

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    1. Definitely steal it, it was a really fun theme and there is quite a bit you can do with it too!

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  7. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G :) no other words can describe, hahaha, really love the lighting (perfection), the background with balloons and everyone's attitude. The drawing poses idea is brilliant. I was on a wedding with a photobooth where the photographer was literally yelling "funnier, be funnier" that made people like me be the opposite :) a pose chart would had been really appreciated that time! :) How did you manage to avoid freaking out for the camera to fall? hahaha I think Dani would be every second checking it was fine ;) Did you use a remote to take the pics?

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    1. YAY thanks Damaris :) It is really hard to spontaneously do an awesome pose on the spot, especially when the timer is ticking down (cheat pose sheet definitely helpful).

      The morning of the prom I had thought, oh it's alright I'll just stick the tripod legs in some bricks to secure it down. Despite our yard containing an assortment of random things we didn't have any bricks - I then kind of forgot about that problem, and spent the rest of the day freakin' out about balloons instead :P I was actually more concerned about people accidentally putting the remote in their pocket or down somewhere nobody could find it. On the night I was so impressed that nobody knocked the camera and everyone put the remote back in the little box I had made for it - so awesome! I also think it helped that I had the tripod set up where nobody really needed to go around it, it wasn't in the way (if that makes sense)

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  8. This was such a great idea and it looks like so much fun! You look amazing by the way:) And the chalk on the floor strangely adds something to the pictures I think. So don't worry about that;)
    Ooh, look forward to the rest! And that birthday haul too… I'll hopefully have mine up tonight, if I can get through all the editing in this already busy evening. We shall see...

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    1. Ah that's good to hear about the chalk, it did cross my mind to photoshop it out but then I realised how absolutely crazy that thought was :P I look forward to your birthday haul! I really love seeing other people's presents (not sure if that makes me weird or not!)

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  9. Love these photos! Looks like you all had a blast! I adore that pretty kitty prop. ^-^

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    1. he turned out to be the best prop ever :)

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  10. Oh my goodness, how awesome!!! All your effort and hard work in setting the photo booth paid off, everyone looks like they're having so much fun. Loving all the outfits. Hehe. You make a gorgeous prom queen.

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    1. Aw thanks trishie! It definitely seemed to all come together nicely and yup people having fun is the best feedback :)

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  11. wow they look amazing! what a success. you look just lovely too :-)

    Katrina Sophia Blog

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  12. Such great photos Fee! So many lolz! I must've missed them going up on fb because I've been thinking "WHEN IS FEE GOING TO UPLOAD THOSE GODDAMN PHOTOS ALREADY?!?!" Hhehehe such a great night and an epic execution of a super awesome idea. Also, Gremmers is the cutestestestest <3
    x

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    1. YAY! you should definitely have a search on my fb page or in my photos albums you should be able to see them, I uploaded all of them too just in case someone was like "Why didn't that photo of me make it?"

      Thanks for coming and making my birthday extra special!!!

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