Event Photography: Edinburgh City Singers

In my previous blog post, I discussed how photography can help promote club events. It turns out that event photography can benefit other kinds of businesses or organisations.

Edinburgh City Singers concert wide shot from back of St Cuthbert church — Establishing shot showing the choir in their concert venue, St Cuthbert church

A few weeks back, I covered the Edinburgh City Singers’ summer concert at St Cuthbert church. While it is perfectly fine to use a flash and freely move about in a nightclub, this was not possible when photographing the choir during their performance. Therefore I had to use the available light in the church and do the best possible job given the circumstances.

Close-up photograph of one of the female members of the Edinburgh City Singers — Since it was not possible to get really close to the choir during the performance, I took some close-up pictures during the rehearsal before the concert.

Edinburgh City Singers is a new choir that started in January 2014. It offers a singing outlet to anyone who wants to get involved. The photographs of their concert will help them in many different ways.

Medium close-up of solo singer of the Edinburgh City Singers at St Cuthbert's church — From the aisle of St Cuthbert church, I was able to capture a few photographs of the solo singers using my telephoto zoom. It was a real challenge to remain still enough to get some sharp pictures given the low level of the ambient light in St Cuthbert.

Good photographs make the organisation look professional. The pictures show the visitors to their website and Facebook page what their concerts are like, and encourage them to join the organisation.

Establishing shot of the choir in St Cuthbert church from the balcony — During the second half of the concert I was given access to the balcony of St Cuthbert, and that allowed me to document the event from a different point of view.

The photographs also preserve the memories of the event for the current singers and the members of the band. For this reason I tried to take a wide variety of shots to get as complete a coverage of the event as possible.

Choir photograph taken from the balcony of St Cuthbert during the concert — My elevated point of view allowed me to take a picture of the choir in its entirety.

It is always important to look for other points of view so that your event photographs don’t look the same as those taken by the people in the audience. I was able to get some pictures of the choir and the band from the balcony that could not have been taken from the church’s floor.