The Challenge
TrueLife's services, when indoors, are in a space that is very light-challenged for most cameras. While perfectly illuminated to the eye, DSLRs have a harder time getting enough light to get a clean image. Whatever my solution was going to be would have to embrace those limitations, either resulting in more grain, or more motion blur.
Our Strategy
I wanted the new style to fit in appropriately with the new direction of the youth group. There was a designer on the team that was working on a new logo, so I worked off of the inspirations for that design (largely inspired by sports brands) and the new slogan (empowered for impact). My goal was to create a style that felt at-home with those ideas, and distinct from other youth groups.
Solution
I did a couple shoots of live services with a couple different stylistic approaches. Creating a natural, high-speed look proved to be a relatively easy experience. The hard part was making imagery that took advantage of the lower-light environment the youth group takes place in. My approach was ultimately to—when appropriate—use slower shutter speeds, resulting in pronounced motion blur. This worked well with the sporty, energetic feeling and created opportunities to highlight specific students in a stand-out way; most photographers would just use depth of field to create a blurry background, we were able to do something highly visually distinct.
The Results
The immediate response was higher engagement rates on the group's Instagram. It seemed without changing posting schedules, students and parents were responding better to the higher-quality media and higher energy. Additionally, there were a lot of people talking about it. Not necessarily one of our KPIs, but still a sign the improvement was noticeable.
