Plan ahead for great Prom Pictures

Nikon D3S, 24-120mm, ISO 200, ƒ/9, 1/60

The key to a great photograph of any kind has a great deal to do with the location. This is the time to start checking with your friends to see about possible locations for the photos before all the kids go off to the prom.

Here one of the parents had a lovely backyard with steps that made for wonderful "natural" risers.

Nikon D3S, 14-24mm, ISO 200, ƒ/9, 1/60

At some point this is the photo that will be made–the crew is all together for one big photo. Now this will most likely be the last photo since some will be running late.

I recommend using lights to be sure that you can see everyone's face without racoon eyes. Racoon eyes are from the overhead sun or even worst a backlit photo.

Here is the setup I did for all the photos:

I had six Alienbees B1600 lights. Four are in front with 65" umbrellas and two in the back pointed up to be sure the trees didn't go black. So many trees in the backyard actually created a dark canopy and using the strobes in the back helped to open up the shadows.

Nikon D3S, 24-120mm, ISO 200, ƒ/9, 1/60

Plan for the lens choice as well. I needed to move quickly so for all the photos except the huge group photo I used the Nikkor 24-120mm. This let me do couple shots and then quickly have a small group photo.

You see the evening of the prom they are not wanting to do photos all night long. They want to go to the prom. Pick a great location, put up your lights and then have a lens like the 24-120mm or multiple cameras with different lenses ready to go.

Proms are just a couple months away, but the best photos are the ones where the photographer takes the next two months to plan. You can rent lights if you don't have them. If you have never done this before then do a test run before the date.

Nikon D3S, 24-120mm, ISO 200, ƒ/9, 1/60

Why I photographed them this way (Part 2)

Nikon D3S, 24 - 120mm, ISO 200, f/9, 1/60

Lighting Setup

This first photo by itself may not make a lot of sense to light and shoot the photo this way. However, when I was asked to help my son with all his friends on prom night I had to be able to shoot a lot of couple shots and group shots in a very limited time.

If you see the lighting diagram you will notice I put lights up behind the people and up the stairs behind them.  This is so I could shoot without having the drag the shutter too long to get the background to show up.  It also helped me by having very little shadow that didn't have some light hitting it.  This meant that the dynamic range was in some ways compressed.

---

I hope you are seeing that I didn't move. What I did do is use the Nikon 24-120mm lens so I could stay put and just zoom in and out the accommodate the size of each grouping.

If I were to step forward I could end up casting a shadow into the photo.  By standing back you avoid the problem of the photographer casting a shadow.

---

Nikon D3S, 14-24mm, ISO 200 f/9 1/60

This last photo helps you to understand one more reason I set the lights one way and left them alone.  I put the lights on light stands and then put them as high as I could make them go and then put sand bags on the bottom of the stands.

This helped be sure the light would drop off down behind people and make any shadows not hit people in the rows in back.  Also by having steps to use I was able to stack folks to get everyone in the photo and see their faces.

Summary

Many times what will determine how you photograph groups will be the time you have with the group and how many different groups you have in that time frame.  I have learned to setup for the biggest group and then place the smaller groups in the same space and just get closer with the camera.