articles/Events/backtoschool-page5

Back to School - part 5 of 1 2 3 4 5

Published 01/08/2009

As very few of these organisations have ever had professional photographs taken before they need lots of help to ensure the orders are actually placed, and, as they have probably not had to handle much cash, it has to be easy to make payments, etc. Online ordering would be good, but as it's photos of children, passwords are essential if the image is shown. They are also not used to the commission, so there is not the need to offer high rates - 10% is probably ideal.

There's a great opportunity to make composite photos - a footballer heading and kicking a ball, along with a team photo, perhaps even the table showing their position in the league at the end of the season! With Cubs and Brownies, etc, you could build a set with a tent - or even do them outside with a bit of greenery. Bands - why not photograph each person with their instrument in front of a white background - then make a composite with all the players - you could even have notes floating off the page?

A common idea is to have a dummy magazine cover, relevant to the sport or activity, and the subject's name in a headline.

The best opportunity however are Family Days. This is where a school, PTA, nursery or youth group organise a day (usually a Saturday or Sunday) when a photographer takes family or child photos in short, pre-booked, sessions. We have done days where we photograph a family every 10 minutes from early morning to late evening.

The current look that sells best is the high-key white background. It's important to realize that these are volume sessions - not full-blown studio sessions, so you will have limits. However, with the Credit Crunch fewer families will have the money this Christmas for full-blown, expensive studios sessions.

To help keep our Family Day and Schools work separate we trade with a different name to our high-end portraits and weddings. All our bulk work trades as Snapping Sam. The prices are quite different to Clark Photographers, our other business, and we also offer a different range of sizes and finishes. It's a bit like Audi (or any car company) our schools' work is like the A3, the weddings like the A6 and our portraits like the A8. They all come from the same garage, are all the same colours and all have 4 wheels - but they all cost very different amounts.

The busiest we have ever been is 119 families over two days for one school. The best we've done is £105 average per family. We've broken £4,000 in a day a few times - so you can see these work well. There are a number of secrets we've found that really have helped make these days successful - and by January we'll hopefully have had a number of £10,000 weekends.

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