Welcome to the GeekShot Photo Exclusive Series. This will be a weekly post featuring cool, interesting, or just plain awesome moments we have captured during San Diego Comic-Con. Each week we’ll post a photo by Beth or James of GeekShot Photography. We may include a short story about the photo, but sometimes we’ll just let the photo speak for itself.
About This Photo
Kristin Kreuk at the Women Kick Ass panel at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con.
Apparently Kristin was very concerned about my camera at this point in the panel. Or was she?
Today we’re going to talk about how to get photos where it looks like a panel guest is interacting with you or paying attention to just you for your photo. It’s not hard to do, but it does require planning and patience. Your first and best chance is to know the room. Are you in Ballroom 20, Hall H or one of the smaller rooms? Once you know that you can plan your seat selection. You’ll want to be as close to the audience Q&A microphone as possible. Obviously you don’t want to be directly behind it though. If you’re in a room where the audience questions don’t have a dedicated spot then you’ll have to make a guess. Generally the panelists look directly at the person speaking unless they can’t see them, then they just look in the direction where they think they may be. Since most panels feature audience questions at the end you can wait to try and catch one of these type of photos until then and enjoy the rest of the panel.
The next option is the one that requires patience, a fast shutter finger, and a bit of luck. During panels there are usually moments where something happens and it’s inadvertently in your direction. Usually it’s someone pointing at something or making a gesture to the audience in general. But you need to be ready for it and if you capture it, you’ll have what looks like an interactive moment between you and the panelist.
Of course you can always just make a loud noise/comment and take lots of photos when everyone looks your way. But do you really want to be that person?
In the case of this photo, I captured a moment when Kristin was concentrating on a question from an audience member.
Have you captured a great “interactive” moment? Let us know in the comments.
You can see all of the previous posts in this series here.
