How to Brief an Event Photographer

Most event photography goes wrong in the week before the event, not on the day. The photographer arrives knowing the venue and the start time, and nothing else, which means they spend the first hour working out who matters and what you actually need.

A good brief takes twenty minutes to write and saves that hour. Here's what to put in one. If you're still at the quoting stage, start with what event photography costs instead.

What should an event photography brief include?

What the event is and why you're shooting it, a running order with times, the shots you must come away with, who the important people are, and any restrictions. Everything else is helpful detail rather than essential.

Keep it to a page. A long document nobody reads is worse than a short one that gets used, and on the day your photographer will be working from whatever fits on a phone screen.

What should the running order tell your photographer?

Send the schedule with times against it, marked up for the moments that matter photographically. A generic agenda is useful. An agenda that says which twenty minutes contain the thing you'll want on the website is much more useful.

Flag the fixed points: when the keynote starts, when the awards get handed over, when the panel sits down, when the room is at its fullest. These are the moments that can't be repeated, and a photographer who knows they're coming will be in position rather than crossing the room.

Also flag the quiet windows. If there's a forty-minute lunch where nothing photographic happens, say so, and your photographer can use it for the posed shots you need rather than standing about.

What shots should you ask for at a corporate event?

Write down the handful of images that must exist, meaning the ones whose absence would be a problem rather than a disappointment. A wish list of forty frames helps nobody. A short list of the shots that have a job waiting for them, on a website or in a press release, gets those shots taken first and taken properly.

For most corporate events that's something like: a wide of the full room from the back, the speaker at the podium with the branding visible, the audience engaged rather than looking at phones, a group shot of the leadership team, and something that shows the sponsor's logo in a natural context.

Anything beyond that is a bonus and your photographer will find plenty of it. The point of naming the essentials is that they get prioritised when the day runs late, which it will.

How do you make sure the photographer recognises your VIPs?

Names on a list don't help much on their own. A photographer who's never met your chief executive can't pick them out of two hundred people in a dark room, and asking around while the moment passes is not a plan. Faces solve it instantly, and this is the item most often left out of an otherwise good brief.

Put a small photo next to each name. Four or five people is usually enough: whoever's speaking, whoever's presenting, the most senior person present, and any client or partner who needs to appear in the coverage. Thirty seconds of introduction at the start of the day does the rest.

Done properly, this single item improves the coverage more than anything else in the brief.

What restrictions should go in the brief?

Anything that can't be photographed needs to be in the brief rather than mentioned in passing. Guests who've asked not to appear, slides with unreleased numbers on them, areas of the building that are off limits, children present who need parental consent.

Put it in writing for both your protection and theirs. A photographer who knows the third slide is confidential won't shoot it. A photographer who finds out afterwards can only delete it, which is a worse outcome for everyone.

When will you get the photos back?

Turnaround depends entirely on what you agreed, so agree it. Say when you need the images and what for, because same-day social posts, a press release on Monday morning and a website refresh next month are three different jobs with three different turnarounds.

If the event includes a headshot station for attendees, flag that too, since it runs to its own timetable alongside the coverage and works much like a team headshot day guide. Ask for a small batch of quick edits if you're posting during or straight after the event. Most photographers will happily send a handful within a few hours if they know in advance, and it's an awkward request to spring on someone at the end of a twelve-hour day.

Agree file sizes and formats too. Web-ready and print-ready aren't the same, and a marketing team that receives only one of them will ask for the other at the least convenient moment.

Who should be the photographer's contact on the day?

One named person, in the building, with a mobile number they'll answer. Not the organiser who'll be on stage when it matters, and not a shared inbox read on Monday. Brief them to expect a call. It sounds trivial and it rescues more shoots than anything else here, because a photographer who can't find anyone spends the first hour guessing.

Someone who knows the running order, can point out faces and can get them into a room they're not supposed to be in. Half an hour of a junior colleague's attention at the start of the day is worth more than any amount of pre-planning.

Event photography brief template

This is the shape we'd ask for, and it fits on one page. Each heading exists because we've been on a job where its absence cost something: a missed speech, a VIP nobody could identify, a confidential slide that had to be deleted afterwards. We tried working from longer documents early on and it didn't work, because nobody reads them at seven in the morning.

The event. Two sentences on what it is and what the photos are for.

Schedule. Times, with the photographic moments marked.

Must-haves. The handful of shots that have to exist.

People. Names, roles, small photos.

Practical. Address, parking, arrival time, contact name and number, restrictions, delivery deadline.

Send it about a week out and follow up with a short call the day before. Ten minutes on the phone catches the things a document never does, like the fact that the room goes very dark during the presentation or that the chief executive dislikes being photographed from the left.

Quick questions

Three questions come up whenever we talk to clients about briefing: how early to send it, whether a shot list constrains the photographer, and what to do when the schedule changes on the day. Answers below, and none of them require you to become an expert in photography to get this right.

How far in advance should the brief go out?

About a week. Early enough to plan around, late enough that the schedule is roughly final.

Does a shot list limit creativity?

The opposite, usually. A photographer who knows the required frames are secured stops worrying about them and starts looking for the better pictures.

The running order changed on the morning. Now what?

Tell them as soon as you know, even by text. A photographer working from yesterday's schedule will be in the wrong room at the wrong moment, and that's the one failure a brief is supposed to prevent.

If you've an event coming up and you'd rather talk it through than write it down, drop us a line and we'll ask the questions ourselves.