Take advantage of your stage time

As a photography sponsor for the National Speakers Association, I have photographed a wide array of people as they delivered their message to audience members. 

Whether it’s a 2-hour presentation or a 2-minute announcement, these folks have a chance to get some time to do their thing in front of the room. 

For many of these speakers, this becomes an easy opportunity to acquire a handful - or a boatload, depending on how much time they have to speak - of image assets of them doing their thing in front of the room. 

But, aren’t those photos only relevant to the meeting and the organization itself? 

Not necessarily. 

While some of the photos that are captured reveal the chapter signage and other association-related materials, other photos look like they were simply captured during a paid presentation. 

Those images can be easily used to visually punctuate the sentiment of stories you share online when you replace the initial context in which they were created with the story you’ve written, that breathes new value into that photo. 

And, if the speaker is not able to acquire image content from their actual paid presentations, these images are a wonderful alternative to zero speaking images throughout your online presence.

And no - cell phone photos don’t count :)  

Are you a part of an organization where you have a chance to get up and speak in front of members while there’s a photographer in the room covering the meeting? 

If so, keep these following tips in mind before you do so:

#1 - Take off your membership badge before you speak. 

This would be a dead giveaway where this photo was taken, so remove it before you open your mouth to anonymize the moment.

#2 - Avoid notes in your hand, if possible.

Since you don’t hold notes in your hand during a keynote, avoid doing that in the meeting. 

#3 - Present your material in the same way you do during a paid gig.

Are you a demonstrative speaker? Talk a lot with your hands? Move around the space? Then do that. 

Deliver your message with the same energy that you have during a client event during this meeting, so that they look exactly the way they would if you were on a stage. 

Doing so will inspire you to want to actually use them. 

#4 - Ask the photographer to focus mostly on tighter-framed shots

If the room is small, half-filled, or a vanilla-looking, meeting space, you don’t want to draw any attention to those distracting variables. 

They rob you of some of your thunder, and you can’t have that.  

As a result, when the photographer focuses on capturing a compelling variety of tight shots, it will sidestep those visual landmines and give you more options to leverage these in your promotional materials. 

Keep these tips in mind the next time you plan to speak in front of fellow members of the organization to which you’re a part of.

It’s a nice lil’ cherry on top for the effort you gave while speaking to them :)