ArtsGoggle 2022 - Pay-What-You-Want Headshots.
ArtsGoggle is our favorite art event of the year in Fort Worth. It’s so great to see so many local artists selling cool & affordable art, and so many amazing people coming out to support artists and purchase art. We wanted to do something special for this year’s ArtsGoggle. Something where we could show off what we do, but also give back to folks. Which is how we came up with the idea for pay-what-you-want headshots.
We’re a big fan of the pay-what-you-want model, because it makes things accessible to folks no matter how much money they have, and we’re big believers in the kindness of community in helping to support and uplift small local businesses, so we trusted it would all work out well to cover our expenses for setting up the booth.
We wanted to do something beyond the typical headshot, something that people could customize a little bit so they didn’t all look the same, and that reflected people’s personalities, which is why we used colored flashes to create different backgrounds (a trick we tried before on our last pay-what-you-want headshot booth during a fundraiser to replace our stolen equipment). We also knew that it would be a long day outdoors for folks, many of whom probably weren’t planning on having their photo taken that day, so we used a trick Wesley had come up with that involves a frame of broken glass, so that when light shines though it it creates a hazy dreamy vignette that softens features with a warm glow.
Normally we’re used to shooting in a studio where we can control the light, or outdoors so that we can move around and work with the natural light, so photographing in a tent, working around the sun’s light bouncing around the tent constantly changing the lighting conditions was a bit of a challenge, but for the most part worked out well. We also had to deal with our booth losing power early on, and the internet not working, keeping us from getting people’s contact info to send them their headshots more easily, but we powered through.
We expected folks who wanted more serious professional headshots, but were surprised and delighted by how many people came to us wanting silly photos, group photos, and just wanted to try something new. By the end of the day, our faces hurt from smiling so much. It felt great to be surrounded by so much joy.
In the end, we met a lot of cool, kind, interesting people, and we’d like to think we got them some very cool & unique photos for a fair price.
If you were one of the people we photographed, click here to see the gallery of all the photos. The download button in the bottom right will allow you to download individual photos. They’re all the full resolution photos, and you can use them however you please. We just ask that you credit or tag @visionandverve wherever possible.
