MRHS59 50th Reunion – Lessons Learned & Ideas for Future Reunions

Photographing the Reunion – The High and the Low Roads

We invited a "professional" reunion photographer to take pictures of our reunion, without realizing that he would then claim copyright to all the pictures he took of us. (We are glad that we didn't ask him him to mow our lawn. Otherwise he would probably have claimed ownership of our property.) As a result, we are unable to publish any of the photographs he took on our web site. It is especially irksome not to be able to publish the group photos, since his were the only ones taken. (This is an example of "The Client Model", described below.)

Luckily for us, we also engaged a videographer (using "The Employer Model", described below) who filmed several of the reunion events. We have been able to capture quite a lot of good stills from the videos. (See for example The Saturday Afternoon Show.) And, of course, the videos themselves (on DVD) are a delight to watch.

Here are the two different methods:

THE EMPLOYER MODEL You engage a photographer/videographer to take pictures for you. This means that he is working for you. You pay him for his time and skill. He takes pictures for you, which belong to you. That is the crucial feature of this model: you own the copyright to the pictures.		THE CLIENT MODEL You invite a "professional" reunion photographer to take pictures and/or videos of your reunion. This means that he is working for himself, not for you. You pay him nothing. He takes pictures which belong to him. He sells the pictures to the participants directly.
Advantages You are in control. You decide what pictures to take, and what to do with them. You own the copyright. This means that you can publish the pictures online or in a yearbook. There is a spirit of cooperation between participants and the photographer. It feels as if he is on your side—which he is, since he is working for you. It is a lot cheaper.	Advantages You don't have the hassle of selecting, editing and distributing the pictures. The photographer supplies a catalog of low-resolution photos on CD, from which participants choose the ones they want and they order them directly from the photographer. It's "free", in the sense that the reunion committee doesn't have to pay the photographers anything.
Disadvantages You have the hassle of finding a suitable photographer/ videographer, ensuring that he has a backup (in case he comes down with swine flu or has a bad hangover), and planning the pictures to be taken. You have the hassle of selecting the photographs worth keeping and distributing them. You have to handle all payments—both to the photographer and from classmates.	Disadvantages You don't own the copyright to the pictures. This means that you can't publish them on your web page or in a year book. The photographers will probably only cover one event, such as the main dinner. At that event, they will be all over the place, taking more pictures than you could possibly need. They will "set up shop" at your reunion, showing slide shows and videos on a big screen to drum up business. It will feel as if "they" have invaded your reunion. The total cost paid by classmates for the photos they purchase will be several times what a good photographer/videographer would charge for his time.

Suggestions and Recommendations Based on the Above

• The quality of video is so good these days that it is questionable whether it is necessary to take any still photographs at all. There are lots of programs that can capture still shots from a video of sufficient quality that they can be published on a web page or printed on photo paper.
• The one exception to the above might be group photos—either of the whole class, or (if there are too many for one picture) of the men and women separately. However, even here video footage in a well-lit room would probably be sufficient. In fact, it might even be superior, since if someone happened to blink at the critical moment, you get a second (and third and 15th) chance to capture a better picture a second or two later from the video.
• When taking group photos (whether still or video), it might be a good idea to take two of each: one with everyone holding a sheet of paper with his or her name in large letters, and one without. This would make it a lot easier afterwards to produce a key to the picture with everybody's names (especially useful for the yearbook or website).
• The most enjoyable way to re-live the reunion afterwards is probably with videos of a quality, and in a format, that can be shown on the living-room TV, so that friends, absent classmates, children and grandchildren can all sit around and watch together, perhaps with a glass of wine and a bit of cheese. (Make that a Coke for the grandchildren.)
• It is suggested that a separate video be made of each event (arrival, cocktails, dinner, dance, visit to school, etc). This way each event becomes a separate menu item on the final DVD(s).
• A major problem when watching a video afterwards is trying to remember who is who. Even if the passage of years has made us all more beautiful than we were 50 years ago, there is no getting away from the fact that we all look very different today. A hurried introduction to 100 or so people in the space of a couple of hours is not sufficient to anchor their physiognomies in sexaginarian brains.
• A solution to the aforementioned problem might be to have the videographer film each new arrival as he or she is handed his or her (may the fleas of the camel nest in the beard of whoever invented political correctness!) name tag. In fact, if this video could be made available immediately, so that classmates could watch it on their laptops before dinner, and when they get up in the moring, it would be a great help. It might also be made available on a TV in the hospitality suite/home base, so that people could sit down and watch it together—especially useful for those who have not brought their laptops with them.
• Note that it is (at least) as important to identify partners as classmates. Otherwise you will spent a lot of time wondering who people are when watching the video, and trying to find them on the group photos.
• As for payment, it is suggested that the cost of the videographer be included in the reunion budget, and the videos placed online, from where they can be downloaded for free. This eliminates at a stroke all the hassle of distribution and collecting monies.
• How do you get hold of a good videographer? Ask around. Google. We have no hesitation in recommending the videographer who made the great videos of our reunion

Catering — and the question of wine

photo: from the video

This will do for starters ...

In order to keep costs down, we decided that for the buffet people could buy their own wine. (Food was included the reunion fee.) This seemed like a good idea at the time. But what we hadn't reckoned with was that this would result in 128 people, each with a plate of hot food in hes (his or her, since you asked) hand, arriving at hes table at approximately the same time, to discover that there was nothing to drink except water. And we hadn't travelled thousands of miles to drink a glass of water.

photo: from the video

... now for a nice glass of water

The staff—which is naturally smaller at a buffet than it would be at a sit-down dinner—did their best to take our orders and bring us bottles of wine. But by the time it was poured, the food was cold. Or else eaten and washed down with water. However, there was no shortage of food (being kept warm on the buffet table), and this glitch was soon forgotten, as the wine started to arrive and we got caught up on what our classmates had been doing during the past 50 years.

Since ordering wine is usually done on a per-table basis, and people don't know beforehand what table they will be sitting at, it would seem that the best solution is to include at least the first glass of wine in the cost of the buffet. Including two glasses in the cost, would make it a lot less stressful for all concerned—especially the catering staff— since orders for additional bottles would then be spread out during the meal, instead of all arriving at the same time.