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Entertaining Guests at an event
Let's face it - entertaining guests can be hard work! No one wants to see guests with a look of complete boredom on their face. Successful events and parties consistently have three key elements: Friends, Food and Fun. Friends is an easy element to get right. Inviting your friends and family is a simple task. Food can be a little trickier to get right - particularly in the 21st century and the wide range of crazy diet fads. Now the Fun is a little bit more complicated
Adding a wow factor is a critical element to a successful party. No one wants to linger in a party that is dull and boring. To help create a warm and relaxing party atmosphere, you must learn to set the right mood that will appeal to the senses. Is the atmosphere warm and inviting? Are the lighting and decoration pleasing to the eye? Is the background music soothing? Details like great music and magnificent lighting help set the tone of the event.
There should be a bit of exclusivity to your event. You don’t want to invite everyone you know; instead come up with a number of guests, say 10 for a dinner party in honor of your half-birthday or 50 for your parents’ 40th-anniversary celebration, and curate an interesting group of people. Keep it as close to an even mixture of males and females as possible. Pull people from all aspects of your life. Think your new office mate would hit it off with your high school buddy? Invite them both to the dinner and make sure to seat them next to each other. Consider your guests’ individual personalities. The best crowd will include introverts and extroverts, great conversationalists and excellent listeners, and people of all ages.
As much as I don't want to admit it, I really am a people pleaser. If I throw a party at my house, it's hard for me to relax. I'm too obsessed with whether everyone's having a good time.
Rachael Harris
Without music, a party can feel like a meeting, so turn up the tunes and set the mood with a lively playlist. If you make a playlist on iTunes, be sure to have several hours of music and choose songs that will move along the event. The music that plays during dinner should be different from the songs that play afterward. Keep things chill and mellow during the meal, and then bring out the dance tunes to get the crowd moving.
Whether it’s a Picnado Pocket Party where guests can snap funny pictures and view the Slide-show, a performance by a jazz artist, or an entire table covered in delectable desserts, there should be an element of surprise to your event. It doesn’t have to be crazy, just something nobody was expecting.
Photography for fun
Let's talk about including photography as entertainment at your next event
Including photography at your Event or Party not only provides loads of fun for your guests, but also has the potential to provide you with hundreds of candid and posed images of your special day. So how can Picnado help users to entertain guests and provide long lasting memories. By using Picnado as a real-time Slide-show at an given Event - guests will be amazed when their pictures are floating across a large screen in real time. Picnado also includes some fun stickers to add to pictures and provides a space for comments. Comments and likes may be displayed with photos on the Slide-show and this encourages your guests to participate and actively contribute to the overall capture of special memories. Not only that, but Picnado includes a feature for administrators to send notifications to users that can be incredibly helpful to communicate important messages to those attending.
Capturing your best photo
In this article we discuss the dos and dont's for channeling your inner Ron Galella
People love contributing to activities at a given event or simply capture moments in life as they were meant to be. This article will provide a quick guide to the most consistent methods for capturing the best photos and ensuring that your contribution is thoroughly enjoyed by all
Snapping great selfies
Taking a great seflie is an artform. This article discusses some great techniques for the ultimate selfie.
Selfies are some of the hardest photos to get right. Yet we love them! Of all the trends in home photography, the selfie and “selfie with friends” trends have been the most popular. And this is largely thanks to the advancing technology of the smart phone. Smart phones simply make it easy to take your own photo anytime, anywhere.
So why then do people often look a little odd in selfies? Staring doe eyes, uplifted pouting lips, weird jaw tilts and worst of all, shadows falling in all the wrong places.
Ever noticed how some friends look the same in every selfie? It’s as if they have read some special posing formula guaranteed to remove any facial lines and shadows. So they use it without fail for each selfie.
The truth is that capturing great selfies boils down to managing several key things – your pose, the photo background and some basic photography know-how. Apart from these three things, you just need to practice.
Here are my favourite top tips for selfies so let’s go through them.
- A great pose. Your selfie is not a Rembrandt portrait so remember to keep it light and happy. People can usually detect a photo is a selfie, so don’t try to hide it. Embrace your selfies. A cheeky pose is a great ruse to give off a casual and fun air. Make sure your smile is genuine for a natural look. Think of something happy if you need to. Some people like to keep a closed mouth, whilst others insist on showing us every tooth in their head. There is a balance you can achieve. A nice show of teeth is good but don’t overdo it. Avoid pouting lips – (remember the trout pout?) and ensure your hair and clothing reflects the mood you want to project. If you are doing a full length pose, cross your legs to enhance their length. Make sure your arms are not hard up against your body. This will help give you a slimmer arm. Think of the classic hand on the hip pose. When you have a group of friends in the selfie, take quite a few shots to give yourselves choice. It is hard to get 5 friends to have open eyes and a smile at the same time. Ensure most people in the Selfie are doing much the same so that the photo gives off a cohesive vibe. But have each person’s pose look a little different. Turn your heads at different angles but make sure you are all still looking at the camera. Watch clothing so that one person’s clothing doesn’t dominate the shot. A strong red colour or a loud pattern will create an immediate focus so watch the positioning and put these colours towards the back or else remove them. Rearrange yourselves till it looks great. The right way to look at the camera and where to place the light has a bearing on your pose. Natural light is always the most flattering but it is not usually found at late night parties! So try to stand where the light will be shining at you, not from behind you and creating dark shadows. Look at a point just above the light for a nice effect. The flash on your camera may suffice but a little extra light can be great. (Don’t worry, you can adjust the exposure later).
- The photo background is an overlooked aspect of photography. With group shots, there is usually very little background to worry about. But with small groups or single selfies, the background can be distracting or overwhelming to the photo. It should only be a backdrop, not the purpose of the photo (unless you are on your one and only world trip!). So keep it simple. Professionals often use plain backdrop curtains when taking photos for this reason. Again, colour can again be tricky. An easy way to avoid its impact is to take the photo in greyscale.
- Remember to use the camera functions as they were intended. Most people just click away without any thought. But understanding how to use the features can help bring out the best shots with ease. Use the burst mode to create multiple shots in a single click. This will give you choice and you can quickly discard the less flattering photos. Always have the flash on to shine light on to yourselves. Light is generally good in photography. If using an iphone, see if your iphone has alternate keys to take the shot. Many iphones allow you to use the volume button as an alternate button. You may find this more comfortable. Or you might try a Bluetooth wireless camera remote. It is a simple as clicking a button. And it enables you to stand further back from the iphone (up to 10 feet) so you can achieve more full length shots, not just head shots as with hand-held selfies. Cameras will offer you manual control overexposure, brightness, contrast, shadows and highlights. For really great selfies, this is worth the effort of playing around till you get what you want. For those with an iphone, try tapping on the screen and adjusting the exposure slider that appears as a sun icon for a really easy way to manage exposure. (Exposure is the amount of light you let in to develop the image correctly). Iphones will have an automatic focal point, but if you tap on the part of the screen where you want the focus to be, you can easily change it. Use Portrait mode to add depth to your selfie. This helps to blur the background and make you the main focus. Use the grid lines to help position yourself. And remember, you don’t have to be dead centre and straight on in every shot! A little to the side can create a great look too. The rule of thirds helps keep a balanced composition in a photo.