LensRentals Blog: How to Create a Photo Booth for an Event

From the LensRentals Blog:

By Chase Reynolds

If you’re at all like me, you’re the designated photographer for your family and friends. If there’s a family photo, you take it. At some point on New Year’s Eve, you’ll have 4 or 5 random iPhone in your hands at once, taking the group shot for everyone to post on social media. Have you ever been invited to an event, or even a wedding, and it’s casually suggested that you bring a camera along? If they ever refer to you as the one with the “nice” camera, it can be a little annoying. Most of the time, though, people are asking because you know stuff and they trust you to do a good job. You are the photographer. This means that eventually you will get asked to build a photo booth.

One of the popular questions we get asked from customers that call and email us, is that they need to build a photo booth for an event they’re either working or hosting, and want our expertise on how to create an effective booth using some of the gear we have available. It’s a tough question because there is no right answer, but we wanted to give you a headstart on how to go about it, for any upcoming holiday parties you may have planned.

I’ll pretense, and tell you that I’ve never made the same exact photo booth twice. There are a hundred ways of doing it and I’m constantly changing my mind based on the location, type of event, gear at hand, or maybe a fleeting creative inspiration. At the core, however, all photo booths have the same basic requirements. It’s a camera, locked off on tripod or stand, taking photos of people standing in front of a backdrop. So I’d like to start by describing the different areas of setup you should think about.