School on Saturday - Photographing a Birthday Party

Happy Saturday Scrappers! Before we start, I have something I have to get off my chest. My name is Heather, and I'm an over shooter. Last Saturday I photographed a birthday party, and this event was no exception. I filled up 9 gigs worth of cards which came out to some number over 800 photos. Well, when I went into it I knew I wanted a lot. I had my shot list in my mind and waited for each shot to present itself. 

So lesson number one. Figure out your shot list. Here is a peek at mine:

Decorations, cakes, cupcakes, food - aka details! 

Greeting Guests

Candids

Posed

The birthday Girl and her sister

Parents

Drees-up time, Make-up, Hair, and Princess Parade

Lunch

Storybook Time

Cake (cutting, blowing out the candles, and frosting on the face)

Freeze Dancing

Saying goodbye and giving out party favors

Opening presents

Some of these are somewhat specific for a Princess party, but fill in the blanks for your own special day. 

Now onto the next step. After you get home and have some time to go through and upload all your cards, edit out the ones you can live without (the blinks, the funny expressions, etc.). Hopefully the birthday party story will start to tell itself. You will start to see which photos belong together. 

Open up your first 12x12 layout and start your storyboard and start to lay out the first page of your story. While it may be tempting to start adding scrap elements, push through it! Get to your second, and so forth and so on. 

Once all your pages are done, you can either stop there, or start adding your scrap goodies. Either way, you will have a book ready to print of that very special birthday party.