Although last week’s project was something I was asked to do I still managed to find inspiration in a couple of places.

First I looked to Rannie Turingan or The Photo Junkie out of Toronto to inspire me in so much as event portrait photography in concerned. The Photo Junkie can be found at almost any event in Toronto taking photos of almost every participant. Sometimes setup with lights and a photo booth, other times not, the Photo Junkie hammers out portrait after portrait.

After meeting Rannie Turingan earlier in the year at PodCamp Toronto I realized that he has something going for himself that I do not. His ability to approach complete strangers and ask for their photos is amazing. Perhaps it is because he is known so well in Toronto or because of his personal character, or a mix of the two, but he’s really good at what he does.

It’s not that I’m not a people person, because I think that I am for the most part, it’s just a different type of people person. Perhaps with time I will get more confident and courageous to do what the Photo Junkie does.

Second, and a more local and technical inspiration is that of Jason Fredin. After PodCamp London and tethering/automator/photoshop/email/posterous setup that Jason had for his photo booth I knew that I needed to try something similar out as I thought it was very effective. The ability to shoot, apply a title block and upload an image in a matter of seconds was something that caught my attention right away.

Although my process was almost identical to that delivered by Jason I wanted to add something else to the mix. Having a TV that played a slideshow of the images during the evening added something additional to the workflow but I think allowed for attendees to be more interactive and engaged with the camera.

One thing is for sure, without seeing Jason’s setup in action I would have never thought of something like that on my own.