Keeping track of photos from events?

<p>I have been asked to propose a solution for a local theme park to operate roving photographers who take photos of families and then the family can visit the sales desk to find, view and print their pictures.<br>

<br />I am trying hard to think of a way that we can make it easy for people to find their photos at the end of the day - there could be several hundred pictures taken so how can we arrange it so that the family can find their pictures quickly and easily?<br>

<br />We could hand out bar coded tickets but how can we link those to the photos on the SD cards?<br>

Does anyone else provide such services for events and how can you track the photo taking to the final images uploaded to the computer and viewing screens?<br>

<br />Thanks for any guidance</p>

<p>Picasa's face recognition / search feature? - Snap a customer when they enter your booth and let the PC dig their face out?</p>

<p>Steve,</p>

<p>For years I shot family portraits on big holidays for the Dallas Arboretum. I wasn't "roving" — my "studio" was set up in a lovely part of the gardens — but in other respects my problems were similar to the one you're trying to solve.</p>

<p>Well, my problems were similar, but not the same. I was taking a small fee for the portraits at the start of the shoot, AND I needed to gather info from them about where to send their complimentary print. So what I did was (a) have them complete an info form with name and address on it and then (b) I'd take a photo of the subject while they held that form up near their face. This allowed me to confirm the connection between faces and the info.</p>

<p>So the big questions are: How much info do you need? How much info do THEY need? If you're just going to take the photos with no commitment on either side, and all you need is to make it possible for them to find the photos of themselves so they can decide whether to place an order, then the easiest way would be to give them a business card that has written on the back the TIME they were photographed. You'd need to make sure that all of your cameras had the time properly set exactly. You could then somehow make it possible for users to search by capture time.</p>

<p>(Because the time would be so crucial to this system, I'd probably introduce some redundancy into my system by occasionally taking a photo of my watch, or perhaps by taking a photo with an iPhone.)</p>

<p>You COULD try using Picasa's (or some other program's) face recognition, but in my experience it's not close to 100% reliable and I fear you'd spend a fair bit of time dealing with the failures.</p>

<p>The system I used (clipboard with info sheet photographed near client's face) worked okay for me. My sessions only lasted a couple days and I didn't have to keep track of colossal numbers of families (usually 100 or fewer per holiday). I sometimes had an assistant with me but usually I did not, so it was crucial that I be able to handle this on my own. Anyway, I expect somebody else with more experience of this sort of thing has a higher-tech better solution.</p>

<p>Will</p>

<p>Thanks<br>

As there could be 2 or 3 cameras roaming around at busy times, I am not sure the time thing will work. I don't need personal info - just a way for them to find their photos quickly so they don't take up too much time at the viewing station and don't lose interest.<br>

<br />There must be something around that I can print cards with barcodes or QR codes on and have the photographer photograph the code and then hand the card to the family. Then snap the photo(s) and have some clever software that can group the photos with the barcode.<br>

I found an online service that does it but I can't find any PC/Mac software to do it but I am sure something must be out there to do it.</p>

<p>Since most cameras allow the user to set the prefix naming of the files it produces, I think if you have each photographer change it to his/her initials or some identifier, you solve that problem since you now have 2 dimensions (which photographer and what exact time). Have the photographer scribble & give the family a card w/ that info and the starting frame # and/or the exact time. At the booth, it's all sorted by time and then you could filter on file name prefix</p>

<p>I've been on the customer end of this at many theme parks and on cruise ships. Some places hand out a card with a time or number stamped on it. The photographer dumps all photos from a certain time period or certain number into one batch. Let's say all the photos from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. or 100 photos in the No. 1 batch, another 200 photos in the No. 2 batch, etc. The customers go to the sales booth and find their photos within a batch based on that number. if there are more than one photographer it can be 1 p.m.-A, 1 p.m.-B, etc., or No. 1-, No. 1-B etc. Doesn't require software -- you could simply change memory cards every hour, or change the cards you're handing out to customers each time you change memory cards. <br /><br />Depending on volume, you may not even need to do that. Many cruise ships shoot like crazy and group the photos according to time and/or event, then leave it to the customers to remember what time or where their photo was taken.<br /><br />Used to be that places printed every frame that was shot and put them on display to be purchased. Trend now is obviously to display them on a computer, which reduces printing costs but increases hardware costs. Ideally you have some sort of kiosk where it's self service to choose and pay.<br /><br />These sales are all on spec, of course, and probably sell a very small percentage of images taken. Are you getting paid as a consultant to set up a system, or would you be the one running the system? Very easy to put a lot of time and money into this and have a lot less to show for it than you might think.</p>