Getting ready to shoot school pictures

Hi friends,

I feel liberated with my entry into the DSLR realm. I am shooting more than

ever before. Photography business wise, I'm mainly a child portrait

photographer, part time. I enjoy it, I do a great job, and it keeps me active

during the shooting season. I almost always shoot outdoors and I used a pro lab

for all my film work in Boston and this Spring/Summer/Fall I will use mpix (who

I've been using for my indoor sports photography this winter on my DSLR).

I know it's boring, but I may need to shoot Grade K-5 school pictures next fall

(outdoors). The only reason I want to do this is because I want to offer my

services and donate all the proceeds to our school's PTO that does a lot of

great enrichment activities for the kids that aren't covered by the school

budget. I figure I can raise around $10K based on my very rough estimate for

about 600 kids.

We are a generally semi-affluent suburb of Boston, but with tight school budgets

and very high property taxes. All parents appreciate what the PTO does and I

think if they knew the proceeds were going to them, parents might order even

more prints.

That said, I don't know where to begin as far as the business side of things.

Hosting sites I am familiar with like photoprint and imagequix wouldn't offer me

the kind of environment I would need for school photos.

Naively, I think what I need is the ability to have each kid have a unique code.

I give proofs to the parent, they order what they want on a hardcopy or online

through a unique ID. And somehow when I place the order online, there is a way

for me to track the kid. But, I think somehow you need to get some kind of payment

Then they get, for free, the class picture. There must be sites that provide

this service, right?

Am I crazy for thinking I can do this??

I searched on photo.net on this subject and came up with zippo.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.simplephoto.com

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There's a lot to like there. The commissions looks high at first, but it's one of the few places that allows complete control over your back-room operations. You can either choose one of many good labs to completely fulfill your orders, have the lab ship the printed jobs to you for delivery, or have the orders emailed to you for printing and delivery. It's also the only online gallery I've seen which can handle multi-size packages from multiple images. For a base of around 12% of your retail price it's not a bad deal (how much would you have to pay a live clerk or other employee?).

They also have a decent and easy to use method to secure galleries, which is definite plus when shooting kids. And they have real live people available to help you design your site and answer your questions.

My soon-to-be-former employer is fixin' to try them out, and I'll most likely be opening an account with them next month.

I shoot school pictures for homeschoolers every fall. I always do outside photos and the parents really love them. I choose a simple background with foliage and then use a shallow depth of field. I use all natural light and the pictures usually turn out beautiful. I usually have the parents pre order their children's indivdual pictures and I fill the order with the best picture. As I am only doing head and shoulder shots I usually only need just a couple of shots to make sure I get one with a decent smile and their eyes open. For a small additional fee I also take several different poses of family or sibling shots. Besides the addtional sitting fee (to cover website hosting) they are able to buy the pictures for the same price as school pictures. The parents love this because it gives them a chance to get Christmas pictures done for a resonable price.

These family pictures are then posted on www.collages.net for two months. The familys are able to go on there and order their pictures (but not the individual pictures, I do that).My school pictures I mail out to the families because I charge $3.00 for shipping. The family pictures ordered through collages.net are sent directly to them from the lab. I did less than 75 students and I only charge $8.00 a sheet (they are able to build their own packages, labor intensive for me but families on a budget love it.) I would say I made around $3,000 doing it this way.

Katie