My Corporate event Photographer job at the Crowne Plaza in Plymouth, Devon.

Black tie events are slowly returning after a long two-year absence. This is how I perform during the evening and what you would expect from me.

I always arrive earlier than my start time. I’m usually an hour or two early but I always ask the business if that’s okay. I like to make sure I have plenty of time to get there, but to also have enough time to call a taxi in case something beyond my control happens.

The first thing I do is unpack one camera and move around the room looking for any potential problems. I’m looking for certain lights that can cause issues with cameras. To fix this, I always bring my own lighting, but I bring different powered lights to fix any and all problems I come across.

My lights range from adding a little pop of light to the people in front of me to strobes powerful enough to flash fill the entire room. My skill is balancing the ambient light with my lighting. I don’t want the photos to look like the flash was used, and I also want to retain as much of the mood of the room as I can.

Let’s take a look at some of the 380 photos I delivered before the weekend was even over.

The Crowne Plaza Hotel in Plymouth is one of those rare venues where I had no issues at all with the lighting. All their lights were high quality and top-notch. For this evening all I used were my on-camera flashes to pop a little fill-light on the people in front of me.

You’ll see from the photos above, although I used an on-camera flash for all those images, it is balanced really well with the natural ambiance of the room.

South West Photo Booths was busy all evening. A popular feature at any event!

There was a caricature company with queues all evening. I left her a card to contact me but at the time of writing, she hadn’t been in touch. She was really good and super friendly to everyone. She created a lot of smiles that evening 🙂

Event Photography talk

For once the lighting and choices were easy and simple. The gear consisted of:

  • Sony A7IV
  • Sony A9
  • Sony 85mm f1.4 GM
  • Sony 24mm f1.4 GM
  • Sony 70-200mm f2.8 GM
  • 2x Godox V1

I only briefly used the 70-200mm. The ISO went pretty high with it. As I was happy and comfortable with the primes, I quickly reverted back to them.

No flickering, no banding, no issues at all inside the venue. This was a pleasant change from the usual issues in most venues. Hats off to the Hotel for having high-quality lighting!

Simon Day

If you have a wedding, portrait, event or festival coming up please contact me. Likewise for portraits. Check out my social media channels: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter