Event photographs outlive the event. They go out with the press release, appear on social media the same evening, and turn up in the annual report and in next year's sponsorship pitch. Yet photography is often one of the last things an organiser briefs, sometimes in a single line: please cover the event.
Most of what makes event photography useful is decided before the day. This checklist follows three stages: before the event, on the day and after it. If you are filming as well, our guide to what to agree with your production team before the day covers the wider coverage questions.
Before the event: purpose and plan
Decide what the photos are for
Start with where the photos will be used, because the answer shapes almost every other decision. A press release needs a handful of strong images with accurate captions, within hours. Social media needs vertical frames as well as horizontal ones, and there speed matters more than polish. An annual report or a website needs fewer images, edited with care, often with space around the subject for text.
Write the uses down and share them with the photographer. Say, too, whether sponsors, speakers or partners will receive images, because each of them will want their own moments covered.
Build a shot list
A shot list turns a general brief into specific pictures. Keep it to one page and mark the must-haves.
- Arrivals and registration, which show the scale and atmosphere of the event.
- Speakers and performers, from the front and the side, with some frames that include the screen behind them.
- Audience reactions, such as laughter, applause and people taking notes, which often tell the story better than the stage does.
- Networking and conversations during the breaks, photographed naturally rather than posed.
- Branding: signage, the stage set, sponsor logos and any product displays, each photographed clearly at least once.
- Venue details before guests arrive: table settings, décor, lighting and the empty room, while everything is still in place.
- VIP moments: arrivals, greetings, signings, award handovers and tours of an exhibition.
- Group photos, each with a planned time and place.
Group photos deserve a plan of their own. Choose a point in the programme when everyone is present, such as straight after the opening session, and a spot with enough space, a clean background and good light. Ask one person from your team to gather people. A group photo left for whenever everyone is free rarely happens.
Prepare a VIP list with photos
A photographer cannot capture people they do not recognise. Give them a list of VIPs with a recent photo of each, their name in Arabic and English, their title, their expected arrival time and who they should be photographed with. On the day, ask a colleague who knows the guests by sight to stay close to the photographer during the key moments.
Mark the key moments in the programme
Share the full programme with timings and highlight the moments that happen only once: the opening remarks, the keynote, an award handover, a signing, a product reveal. For each one, tell the photographer where it will take place and from which side people will enter. If two key moments overlap in different places, you need a second photographer, or one of the moments needs to move.
Before the event: the setting and the people
The backdrop and the stage lighting
Many of the most-used photos are taken in front of the backdrop, so treat it as a set. Choose a matt finish, because gloss reflects the flash. Place logos at head height as well as lower down, so they stay visible when people stand in front of them, make it wide enough for a group and light it evenly.
Then talk to whoever is lighting the stage. Coloured washes and moving lights can look impressive in the room but turn faces blue or purple on camera. Ask for clean, warm light on the lectern and on speakers' faces, and invite the photographer to the lighting check. Bright screens directly behind speakers cause a similar problem, because the camera has to choose between the face and the screen.
Agree photographer positions
Walk the venue with the photographer, or at least share a floor plan. Agree where they can stand to cover the stage, where a raised position at the back gives a clean wide shot, and where they must not stand, such as in front of the VIP front row or in the sightline of a video camera. If there is a backstage area, a VIP lounge or any restricted zone, arrange access passes in advance.
Consent and sensitivities
Some guests will prefer not to be photographed, and they should be able to say so easily. Set up a clear system, such as a different badge or lanyard colour for anyone who opts out. Mention it in the invitation and at registration, and brief the photographers so they know what to look for. Any image that includes an opted-out guest by mistake should be left out of the selection.
Families and children need extra care. Photograph children only with a parent's agreement, and avoid close-ups of children who are not part of the programme. Be mindful of cultural sensitivities, too. Some guests, particularly women at family or mixed events, may prefer not to appear, and moments such as prayer or people eating are best left unphotographed. Where there are women-only areas, arrange a female photographer. For releases, permissions and usage, see our article on rights and releases for photos and video.
Set a dress code for the photographers
Photographers should blend in. Ask for dark, plain, modest clothing without logos, and something more formal for a formal occasion. They should wear their accreditation where your team can see it, and switch to a silent shutter during speeches and quiet moments.
On the day
One point of contact
Name one person on your team as the photographer's contact for the day, with the authority to make decisions and a phone that stays on. When the programme changes, as it usually does, that person tells the photographer first. Several people giving different instructions is how key moments get missed.
Selected photos for same-day use
If you want images during the event, for social media or a press release, agree it in advance: how many, by what time and how they will reach you. It usually means the photographer, or an editor working alongside them, stepping away to download, select and lightly edit a small set. Decide who approves them before they are posted, and make sure that person is available.
Backups
Memory cards can fail, and they are easy to lose. Ask photographers to record to two cards at once where the camera allows it, to carry spare batteries, cards and a second camera body, and to copy everything to two separate drives before leaving the venue. No card should be cleared until its files are confirmed in two places.
After the event
Agree the delivery timeline
Agree the timeline before the event, not after it. A workable pattern is a small set of selects on the day, the full edited set within a few days, and any detailed retouching later. Confirm the formats, such as high-resolution files for print and lighter files for the web, and download everything into your own archive as soon as it arrives, because shared links expire.
Ask for a natural, consistent edit
The edit should make the photos look the way the event felt, not the way a filter looks. Ask for natural skin tones, accurate brand colours and no heavy retouching of faces. If more than one photographer is working, their images should look like one set once edited. Ask to see a sample of the editing style, or approve the first few images, before the full set is processed.
File naming and metadata
A folder of files with camera-generated names is hard to use a year later. Agree a naming convention, such as the date, the event name and a sequence number, and a folder structure by day or session. Ask for the photographer's credit and your organisation's details to be written into each file's metadata, with a few keywords, so the images can be found again.
Captions with names spelled correctly in both languages
Caption the key images with who is in them, what is happening and where. Check every name and title against your VIP list, in Arabic and in English. Names are transliterated in more than one way, so use the spelling each person uses. A misspelt name in a published caption is one of the easiest mistakes to prevent and one of the most noticed.
Confirm the usage rights
Finally, confirm in writing how you may use the images: on which channels, for how long, whether in paid advertising, and whether you may share them with sponsors, speakers and partners. Agree whether the photographer must be credited, and how.
A clear brief is the difference between a folder of pictures and a set of images you can use for years. If you would like help planning photography or wider coverage for an event in Qatar, you can see what ARZO's multimedia team does, or request a proposal and tell us about your event.
