Plan a Photo Shoot on a Small Budget

Most of what makes a shoot succeed happens before the day. With a plan, two hours give you everything from step 11. Without one, a full day gives you forty versions of the same picture.

Photo: “My wife and I” by Dusty J, CC BY 2.0.

Write the shot list

A shot list is the set of photos you need, written as deliverables. Take the five from step 11 and add what your next release needs:

1. Lead portrait, tight, plain background
2. Wide with empty space on one side
3. Vertical, full body
4. Horizontal, for banners
5. One in action: playing, walking, setting up
6. Details: hands, instrument, an object from the artwork

Six to eight lines is plenty. Each line is a setup, and each setup takes 15 to 20 minutes.

Make a one-page brief

Send the photographer one page before you talk about dates:

• Your three words and the moodboard from step 5
• Your palette, so clothes and location can agree with it
• The shot list
• Where the photos will be used, and in which shapes

A photographer who receives this can tell you honestly what is possible in the time you have. That conversation saves more money than any discount.

Where the money goes

On a small budget, spend on the person behind the camera and on time. Save on everything else.

• Location: free ones are everywhere. A wall, a stairwell, a rehearsal room, a street at dusk.
• Light: a window or the hour before sunset costs nothing.
• Styling: clothes you own, chosen with the palette.
• Extras: skip smoke machines and props unless they are in the brief.

If you cannot pay a photographer yet, a friend with a recent phone and this plan will beat an expensive camera with no plan.

Two hours with a shot list beat a full day of “let’s see what happens.”

Agree on the delivery

Before the shoot, settle three things: how many edited photos you receive, by when, and how you may use them. Put it in a message you can find later.

One session can also feed video. If that is useful, plan it into the same day. We wrote about it in One Shoot, Thirty Pieces.

Do this now

Write your shot list and the one-page brief. Even if the shoot is months away, the brief is the hard part, and it is free.

Planning what gets shot, and why, is the photo direction we do with artists before a release. See how.