liveimagephoto-blog

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Celebrating with Google Bulletin

#OaklandPhotoBooth #Google #GoogleBulletin

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16th St. Station - Oakland, CA

This past weekend we had the pleasure of setting up a photo booth for a wedding at Oakland’s famous 16th St. Station. If you haven’t heard of it, it was one of Oakland’s 3 major train station- and a very important connector for trains entering the Bay Area. Originally built in 1912, it served had train lines running all the way up until 1989, when it was damaged during the Loma Prieta earthquake. Over the years, it faded a bit into obscurity, remaining untouched, except by vandals. In the past few years however, they’ve been hard at work restoring it to it’s former glory... Sort of!

While the main hall is breathtaking with a sort of majestic grace... it’s also mixed with a gritty, urban feel. The walls and floors are still full of original and absolutely beautiful material and architecture... but feel raw with brick showing through in spots or paint peeling in others. The side rooms just as beautiful- but graffiti still plasters the walls... and yet, it just works. The mix of elegance and urban decay creates an absolutely gorgeous space that feels unique and true to Oakland’s roots and history. 

As you can see in our photos, the dramatic lighting filled the halls, changing as the light outside faded. It felt soft and elegant in the early evening, perfect and welcoming for the couple as they said their vows. As the night progressed however, so did the lighting. It became more intense, grittier, and elevated the dinner and dance floor into a true party. As a surprise to all the guests, the famous Oakland rapper, Too Short, visited later in the evening. The crowd went wild, and enjoyed every second of his performance- so much so, that he stayed for an encore!

Our Photo Booth remained a huge hit throughout the night too... and as always, our guests always let loose and go all out for group photos as the night progresses (and a drink or two never hurts!)

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UX Week 2017 - Adaptive Path

We often receive a lot of last minute jobs... Usually those calls come around 2 days to a week before the event date. We’re always ones to jump to and make things work out whenever we possibly can and last night was no different. Well, besides the fact that instead of a few days notice, we got an hours notice!

We had received a frantic call from Coin-Op Game Room- their booth had broken down at a very inopportune time... right before a big event! Luckily, we had the evening off and started loading up the Van immediately (we were technically still on the phone with them!) The drive to San Francisco from Emeryville is luckily pretty quick, especially when it’s reverse commute... but I think we still made it to their location on 4th street in record time. We’re pros at setting up (when you’ve done hundreds of gigs, you get pretty quick at it!) and the load in was quick, so we were up and running with a few minutes to spare... just enough time to design the artwork for the Retro Booth!

The actual event went off without a hitch- and it was amazingly fun! We may say that all the time (because it’s usually true!) but this venue was pretty fantastic. You can never go wrong with 90′s retro arcade games... especially when there’s great beer and food served to you right there! We’ve worked with a few bars with this theme, but so far, Coin-Op is our favorite! They even gave us some opportunity to join in and play a few games... it was definitely a nostalgia trip and we played Ninja Turtles, Area 51, OG Time Crisis, and Super Off Road... all the things we grew up playing, but now you can enjoy them with a drink in hand.

If you guys haven’t checked it out before, you should definitely stop by. The games are affordable (usually a quarter per play, just like back in the day!) and so are the drinks and food. All of us here at Live Image Photo Booth are definitely looking forward to (hopefully!) working with Coin-Op Game Room again soon!

You can check out their website here:  www.coinopsf.com or visit them at 508 4th St, San Francisco, CA 94107 in SOMA!

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Santa Rosa Marathon - Amica

This weekend we had the pleasure of working with Amica Mutual Insurance and the Santa Rosa Marathon doing a Green Screen! As all our events are, it was incredibly fun for not only the guests, but for us too! We’ve worked with them for the past few years, and we’ve definitely found that they’re not only awesome people, but the people who run in the Santa Rosa Marathon are down to earth, obviously energetic, and always ready to have some fun!

Despite it being a toasty weekend (at least for those of us spoiled here in the coastal Bay Area cities) everyone was in a great mood for photos. We were stationed right at the end of the finish line, so not only were we a hit with all the families and friends waiting for their loved ones to finish the run, the runners themselves were pumped to take photos right away! And by right away- we mean right away! We saw a lot of still panting, sweaty, and exhausted runners... who definitely weren’t too exhausted to share in their triumphs for a photo!

We took a few “action” shots of the couple above (thank you guys!) to show how the green screen process works. In the first shot, you can see Isha, one of our Photographers, waiting at the computer right before the event started. Due to the relatively limited room we had to set up, we had to have the computer and printer set up on the inside of the booth- but we’re adaptable and can make most anything work! It certainly made taking photos a little more interesting, but it kept us on our toes!

In the next few photos, you can see a few of the action and posing shots Mike took. Once Isha took the main shot, it’s imported immediately into the computer and we were able to adjust the size and position in order to create the bottom image! We printed it out for them on the spot, so it was the perfect keepsake of the race!

As an edit, we’d also like to wish the people of Santa Rosa a speedy recovery after the horrific fires that swept through the area. This event took place a few weeks prior, and we do a lot of events in the North Bay- so seeing the devastation is beyond horrifying. We are so grateful to see how the local community has teamed up to try and help the victims though- we can’t wait to be a part of the Santa Rosa community again soon!

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Feminist Frequency - Celebrating Tropes Party

We had the pleasure of working with Feminist Frequency a few weeks back- it was an old school arcade themed party, so right away we were interested. We love video games (and you can never go wrong with the arcade fun we all grew up with!) We’d heard of Feminist Frequency through various blogs and the news cycle over the last few years, but we had never known much about them overall. We can say though, without a doubt, they were an absolute blast to work with! Great people and a great vibe lead to great photos… and we think they turned out fantastic!

Here’s a couple of our favorite shots- everyone there had such great and individual style. No one seemed afraid to embrace a colorful hairstyle, fashion sense, or even persona! We thought it was fantastic to see such a diverse crowd celebrating their mutual love of video games together! Video game enthusiasts comes from all walks of life and a lot of games and conventions don’t really show that diversity… even in places as diverse as Oakland and San Francisco. Seeing crowds that reflect the actual local diversity this well was inspiring and so it was refreshing to see!

Not only did we do the Photo Booth Photography for the event, we also compiled all the images into some pretty killer GIFs right there… the photo strips are awesome, but GIFs are definitely a bit more fun for social media tomfoolery. And with GIFS, you get the bonus of seeing the goof up shot right smack in the middle (don’t pretend you’ve never sneezed mid photo, or timed something wrong!) and it’s a lot more entertaining to see that in GIF form!

We love to see people embracing their passion- and not being afraid to do so because of who they are or where they’re from! If you love something, you should let it show (we love Photo Booths and love to show it, so we might be biased here!) We had an amazing time and we think they did too (not just because of our photos of course, but we’re pretty sure we helped!) Thanks so much you guys!

And for those of you that haven’t seen any of their work, here’s one of their most recent Tropes vs. Women in video games!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BrKqEtG-2w

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British Airways & I Fly OAK 2017

We’ve done a few jobs with various airlines from Oakland Airport, so we were excited when we booked this job- after a tour of the location and a few test shots, we did realize that this job was going to be a lot more complex than most. 

We love a good challenge though, so we jumped right in; the backdrop they wanted for the shot was the airplane in the above shots. That in itself sounds awesome, because, well, it’s an airplane and it is awesome. The problem was the background was overall not very photogenic; the building was a bit old and dilapidated, the pavement was rocky, and the small patch of grass was sad and wilting. The event was also booked for the early evening... starting from right before sunset and ending during the pitch black of night. 

Those issues combined would probably make most photo booth and green screen companies nervous- but not us! If you take a look and the above photos, you can see how great they turned out.  That’s no green screen folks! We were able to catch the setting sun and adjust our lighting equipment on the   “fly“    (see what I did there?) for some of the most gorgeous shots. The venue at the Oakland Aviation Museum was super cool to visit, but the photos we were able to compose really made it shine far into the evening.

We had a blast with this photo shoot, especially since it was one that kept us on our toes a bit more than a basic set up. We know the clients as well as the party goers absolutely loved it as well! They enjoyed the party and had gorgeous shots they were able to take home after.

Check out the rest of the photos from this   event here.   (You can see all the awesome shots 

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Smells Like Team Spirit

We recently had the pleasure to work with the marketing department for the Oakland A’s at the Coliseum here in Oakland, CA. Not only was it an awesome venue, but the people were amazing to work with! Everyone was happy to be involved and you could tell they all loved what they did. They had a blast and we definitely did too.

The idea for this event was simple, yet absolutely perfect- what’s a better business card for someone who works for a Professional Baseball team... than a mock Baseball Card? With the help of our trusty Green Screen, we were able to make that happen, on the spot. The A’s supplied the props (actual equipment the team uses) so things looked completely legit!

This event did involve a bit of extra customization; the names of the “players” and their “position” (aka what department they worked in) were customized on spot! This definitely complicated matters a bit, especially since it was a short event, but due to some creative thinking, two awesome Photographers, and a friendly crowd, things worked out perfectly.

The department was emailed the correctly sized cards after the event, but we also offered printing the day of using the overlay above! This way, the group not only got their photos done for their eventual business cards, but they got to take home prints the day of. We also decided to bring in our iPads and everyone was able to email their photo immediately after it was customized.

This enthusiastic group ideas for poses really pushed us to create some dynamic shots. Just look at that catch! We work some amazing green screen and photo booth events, but this one was definitely one of our favorites.

Check out all of the green screen photos here.