Isabelle’s 6th Birthday Party at Stay and Play

Isabelle’s 6th birthday party was a total success. She dressed in a Wonder Woman costume. Everyone else dressed in their favourite costume too. My daughter has chosen Elsa.

They danced and jumped up and down for hours. Thought-out the evening they met their favourite heroes: Mickey & Mini Mouse, Peppa Pig & George, Spider-Man & Baby Shark, and to top it all up Moana, Belle, Anna, Elsa and Rapunzel. The highlight of the evening was the foam party on their favourited tunes. To quote my daughter: “was the best party ever”!

Tips for my fellow photographers

I used a Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 70-200mm 2.8L and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible allowing the kids to be themselves and capture those special moments we will treasure forever.

Tip 1.

The first challenge I had was identifying my subjects. The venue booked two parties at the same time which means two different groups of kids running around. Luckily they issued different coloured wrist bands which made the identification process a lot easier.

Tip 2.

The other issue was identifying the birthday girl, but in this case, was easy because she was the only one wearing a “Wonder Women” costume, but in general, the birthday girl or boy would have a name tag attached to their costume.

Tip 3.

Don’t run around too much. Kids are quick and make you dizzy. Stay put and use a longer lens. Identify the areas where the fun is and position yourself so you can have good lighting and wait for the kids to go there.

Tip 4.

Before you back up all your photos delete the really bad ones (in camera) to save time in post-production and space on your hard drive.

Tip 5.

Import all the photos in Lightroom and start editing from the last image backwards, giving 3 stars to any photos you want to keep. The idea is that usually, the last picture you take is the best one in a series of shots and this way you only work on the best shot first and easily discard the not so good shots.