Another terrific shoot at Kings Island yesterday. The forecast called for rain, but it was a warm, sunshiny day that only moved to overcast, with a chilly breeze. The area was new and pristine. The assignment was to capture candid moments of people enjoying the rebranded kids’ area now called Camp Snoopy. In this sense, it is similar to wedding photography or event photography, but with some limitations. With wedding photography, you should be allowed to capture everyone at the ceremony and reception in the moment. With this type of photography you’re only allowed to capture the likeness of people if they agree to signing a waiver.
For this session, the communication team used friends and family for the background, and hired talent for the main focus. This group however is where the challenge lied. They were too young or too old? For certain, they were too inexperienced. For the kids, they were too old to play and too young to follow instructions. Take the photo above. It looks like we have a little girl with her dad enjoying the ride, however Kings Island cannot use this photo in their marketing materials. The cast was given strict instructions for things like, don’t make eye contact with the camera, be kind to each other, and keep your hands and arms inside the rides at all time. Some of the kids seemed to think they were too cool for the play area and had real issue with smiling or, at least, trying to have some fun.
Take a look at the young man at the bottom of this next image. He wouldn’t smile, essentially making all of the photos with him useless. Having strange adults around him telling him to smile didn’t help at all. When you have plenty of time for the shoot, you can let the cast get to know each other and help be more comfortable around each other in front of the camera. We had a tight schedule that wouldn’t allow for that. With this little guy, and with the girl pictured above with her hands up, I realized, they responded better to me telling them how great of a job they were doing.
After a good deal of time, we were able to get some smiles. There was also a definite shift in their attitudes when rides were involved.
For many of the adults, they needed a lot of direction and ended up standing around chatting with each other when not provided detailed instructions on how to pretend to be a parent in a family unit. There was one superstar in the group of children. She took direction well and just came to look like she was having fun even if she wasn’t. At one point, she did run up to the camera to let me know, “All the best friends are together underneath this log”, in case I wanted to take their photo.
Other than her, the crew quickly realized, the unpaid background talent was providing better imagery than the paid talent. In many cases, they were real family members comfortable being themselves and ignoring the cameras. Once we let this group be themselves, we were able to get the best shots of the day..
If you’re in the Columbus area (or Cincinnati) looking to book marketing, event, or wedding photography with Harry Acosta Photography, you can schedule your session here. I’m also often available throughout the week to discuss your ideas and discuss details.