The Rustic Heart Booth

The Rustic Heart Booth is a ‘selfie pod’ style column supported, free standing photo booth, in the shape of a giant heart.

A Rustic Heart Photo Booth in place before a wedding reception event.

The Rustic Heart Booth

So, what is so special about the Rustic Heart photo booth and what can it do?

The Rustic Heart booth is capable of performing all the tasks that other free standing, unenclosed photo booths are capable of performing. Depending on the software that your photo booth hire company is running, and more importantly the package inclusions in your hire contract. (i.e. which services you have booked from them). This booth can take pictures, supply prints, share images, GIFs, videos etc on the Socials, and add filters and virtual props to your images. The single selling point of this unit, is the design. But, if this is a design you love or a design that will just fit perfectly at your event, then it is a very significant selling point indeed! Customers tell me they have found this booth to be a spectacular addition to wedding, engagement and anniversary events. The obvious romantic connotations make for a lovely gesture at a surprise party for a loved one. I’ve also found clients delighted to hire the booth because it fits in so well with the other decor at their wedding receptions.

Have I got the space for this booth at my event ?

The booth is often supplied unaccompanied or together with the ‘Rustic Environment**’. It is important to remember that the floor space required with either option is similar. This is because, like all free-standing unenclosed photo booths, guests will need to stand approximately 2 metres from the booth to ensure the best photographic results. The unaccompanied booth option requires about 2m X 1m floor space, and the ‘booth with environment’ package requires approximately 2m X 2m. The booth arrives in flat pack form and is assembled on site. Your operative can negotiate stairs and tight spaces to access your set up location with this booth. ** The’Rustic Environment’ consists of several prop items designed to enhance the rustic aesthetic of the booth.

The Rustic Environment

1. Apple crates - these crates double up as the housing for the printer. This keeps the unit safe.

2. Picket fence with fairy lights - a small wooden fence is illuminated with fairy lights to enclose the booth area

3. Green lawn - approximately 2m X 2m of fake green grass lawn is used as a base for the booth enclosure

Do I need a backdrop ?

The next most important thing to consider is where to position your photo booth. Many customers are keen to have the Rustic Booth against a wall and facing outwards into the room because it gives the best opportunity to admire the attractive design of the unit, and it adds an immediate aesthetic quality to the event. However, when considering the quality of the photos, this may not be the best idea. There are two reasons for this;

*The asymmetric inequalities and other ‘difficult to control ‘ elements of the background.

*The extraneous persons captured in the shots, during a photo taking session.

The camera will generally be pointing into the room, when the booth is placed against a venue wall. This will mean that the background of the photos will include windows and doors, maybe fire exit signs and all manner of other obstacles that ideally we don’t want in the pictures.

The other issue is that the camera will also likely pick up other guests in the background, that are not part of the photo, and this is not a good look! If your booth operator prefers to capture the photos using manual focus, there is also a risk that the camera might refocus on the wrong element in the photo too, causing the shot to be out of focus.

Having said all this, it is still possible to get good results with the booth set up this way, particularly if you ensure that guests stand closer to the booth and the camera shoots in landscape mode. This means the photos are ‘close-up’ shots of guests faces rather than more full bodied portrait shots. In this case, the background of each photo is less prominent. Ask your photo booth company about this, and be sure to check with your operator on the night that the photos are to your liking.

However, if the best quality pictures are to be captured and you are keen on full length photos of your guests, (especially important for fancy dress events), I would recommend facing the unit against the wall and positioning a backdrop against the wall. Most commercially supplied backdrops / flower walls from photo booth companies are around the 8ft x 8ft size. This is fairly large and perfect for medium to large venue event spaces. They come in a range of designs and can be added on to your photo booth package when you book. They must be positioned against a venue wall for safety reasons. This is great if you are hiring a bigger venue for 100s of guests, but what about smaller events in houses or community centres? These backdrops are certainly too large for most private residences. If you have a nice picture on your wall or just a particularly attractive wall in your home, this will perhaps make a nice backdrop on it’s own. But, the best results that I’ve encountered for smaller parties, are from clients who create a balloon wall or a personalised backdrop using craft shop materials, and hang this up on the wall opposite the photo booth.

Any other considerations?

Once, you have decided on where to position the booth and what sort of backdrop you would like for your photo booth, there isn’t much more to worry about. Most set ups incorporate a flash gun that is hidden inside the unit, which means no additional photography lighting is necessary and the pictures are correctly exposed. The unit is compact enough to compete in size with most other commercially available photo pods, and therefore it can fit in spaces that any other booth can.

Cost?

The unit is generally about the same cost to hire as a regular photo booth. This unit falls within the low/mid price bracket of a photo booth companies portfolio. You may find it a little more expensive because of the customised design and by virtue of the fact that there are less of them out there compared to the classic booths.