Is the room worth shooting?
While it’s important for speakers to have photos of them commanding a stage…
…it’s essential that the room looks right for you in the photos.
I recently chatted with a keynote speaker about one of his upcoming events.
He wanted to check in with me to see if I thought whether it would be a worthwhile investment to fly me out to capture photos of him on stage.
After I asked him a bunch of questions regarding the engagement, and he sent me an image of the staging and lighting setup, I gave him the green light and I locked the date into my calendar.
Why did he even bother to ask me?
Because all the rooms in which you speak are NOT created equal.
He understands that there is a perception of your ability as a speaker in the minds of those that hire you based on the way the room looks in the photos.
Sometimes, it’s an absolute no-brainer.
For others, it’s a complete waste of time.
And, an experienced, professional event photographer will give you the straight dope on whether the space in question is worth it or not.
But, how do you figure it out on your own?
1 - The size of the audience is at or above the typical size for your presentations
While all speakers present in front of a variety of rooms, what is the average size of a “big” room for you?
50? 550? 5000?
Whatever that number is, that becomes your baseline. If an audience is promised to be at that number or higher, then this is an ideal number to bring in a photographer.
Over time, that baseline number will evolve. As a result, your requirements for a certain number of participants grows along with that evolution in order to justify the cost of bringing in a photographer.
But first, start by creating a portfolio of photos speaking in what “big” rooms look like to you now and share them across your entire online presence - most notably, your website speaking page with all your topics and descriptions.
What if the event professional promised 500 participants and only 150 showed up?
Speak with your photographer beforehand to let them know that they need to shoot around all the empty chairs and make use of the backs of heads that are in the room.
While not as full in terms of participants, those photos will still be more than valid to use - as long as the emptiness of the space is minimized or avoided entirely.
2 - The stage looks “good”
It’s not just about who’s in front of you - it’s also about what’s behind you, too.
Now, there is a lot of creative latitude when it comes to staging and lighting conference platforms. And, depending on your experience, you’ve seen a wide variety of setups.
For some speakers, presenting in a small conference room with a projection of their slides behind them is their default setup.
While for others, parading back and forth across a 50-foot stage, with a 20-foot digital wall behind them, flanked by two IMAG screens with 4 cameras pointed at them is their usual fare.
And the rest fall somewhere in between this gigantically wide chasm.
But here’s a simple room of thumb when determining whether the staging and lighting is worth it to you to hire a photographer to capture the talk:
When you look at the stage, are you excited to stand in front of it and show the world how awesome you look performing on it, or is it just meh?
If the stage setup feels on par or better than what your typical stage looks like, then it’s worth bringing the photographer in for it.
If it’s a toss-up in your mind, don’t even bother. If you look at the photos and wince at the setup behind you, you’re never going to use those photos. Save your investment for a better stage.
What if the crowd is HUGE but the stage looks meh?
While my suggestion is to hold off the investment until the stars fully align, BUT, if you simply want to take advantage of the throngs of participants present, instruct your photographer to do three things:
Shoot a lot from the wings - the sides of the room - so that the focus of the photos is you speaking and the participants from a profile angle, which minimizes the stage directly behind you.
Grab a lot of tight, close-ups of you speaking so that the background falls out of focus and is less noticeable.
Capture as many audience reaction shots as possible - laughing, taking notes, raising hands, photographing slides and you performing - in wide, medium and close-ups so that you have those in your back pocket for various marketing and promotional needs.
3 - The investment makes sense
Bringing a photographer along to capture your keynote certainly isn’t cheap, especially if you have to fly them to the venue and put them up in a hotel the night before.
And, of course, there are ways around that, such as hiring a local photographer.
Regardless, the key to determining whether or not the investment is worthwhile is two-fold:
Will I be resentful of how much my speaker fee will go to the photographer?
Do I have a plan in place to leverage these photos online so they don’t go to waste?
If the answer is YES to both, then it’s a go to pull the trigger. If there’s one NO in there, then this event is not a fit for you to invest in the photos.
It’s really that simple.
And these two questions are relevant for speakers of all experience levels and fees.
As you go up and down the speaker fee hierarchy, your tolerance level for resentment towards a photographer fee will change.
But, it’s important to know where you currently stand and do whatever feels most comfortable to you now.
At the end of the day, photos of you on the stage are an incredibly valuable asset when looking to get on more stages - and bigger ones, too.
It adds a healthy dose of visual credibility to the speaking side of your business.
It allows event professionals to visualize what you’ll look like in their rooms in front of their audiences.
And they show the level of passion and intention you put into your performances through your facial expression and body language.
But when it comes to investing in these visual assets, be mindful of the room you walk into before you pull the trigger on the investment in a photographer.
This decision can help in raising - or plateauing - your current speaker fee.
For more information on visual storytelling for experts that speak on stages, write books, present virtually, facilitate and coach, good news! I share a ton of insights, strategies and tactics through my blog.