Best Practice...

Hello everyone,

 

I have a question that I have to ask. As of this moment i am a Dance photographer. I have taken pictures for Recital, and Costume pictures at the studio. My last shoot, i took over 3500 pictures over a period of 5 days at the studio. To complete the order we print out order forms for them to fill out.

 

They decide if they want a USB drive for the pictures, Print package, Which include a memory Matte as well. Then as i take the pictures of there kids, and the group we put the Image number on the order form.

 

I have to come home and sort everything out, upload the pictures for prints for them to choice what ones they want and so fourth. Is there an easier way to do this. Maybe electronically?

 

I can't have orders done and printed from my site because of the picture package i offer, the first one is 15.00 which includes 8x10, 5x7, & sheet of wallets. Then any other print package is 8.00 each. My site can process that only Individual prints.

 

I am asking what everyone else does when shooting allot of pictures with diffent kids, costumes and such. I am looking for something that affords a quick way of proccessing the orders.

 

Thank you

Sounds like a lot of work for the $ and must make for a long week :) Have you giving any thought to using printers that print as you shoot? In the past I've attended youth sports tournaments, there's always a photographer shooting the game. They use a copy of the roster so they can cross off each player after they shoot them, and they take several shots of each player. While the game is still going on, the second person is looking at the 5x7's and putting the best one in a folding card frame? and then print an 8x10 to place in a sport themed mat. After, they hang them on a wall like you see at art shows. After the game ends, the parents stand around looking at the photos of their budding stars and make a purchase. I never herd a parent complain about the price either. Maybe you could do something similar. It sounds like the parents want a model shoot for the same price as the annual school class photo.

You could also work with your online site to create a custom package. Some of them do offer such things, so it's worth asking about.

Hi, if I were in your shoes I'd be looking at systems for what they call "event photography." Preferably something that can read barcodes.

 

I don't know how your shooting regimen goes, but if you know ahead of time who you will be shooting, there are, or at least used to be, systems that would allow scanning a barcode, then this barcode was associated with all images taken until the next barcode scan. The prerequisite is that the studio gives you a list of names, printed out with a barcode next to each name.

 

I've been involved in things loosely related to this, but we were a large outfit able to make our own software. Or if it was commercial software we could have it customized. So I don't know specifically what is available for an individual. But most likely all of the issues you're gonna run into have already been encountered in either the event or school photography business. And if you can find affordable software or systems specialized in those areas, it might be pretty useful.

 

At the same time, the learning curve and possible required commitments MIGHT not be worth it; you'll have to make those decisions. When I say "commitments," for example they might want to hook you into an ongoing licensing fee, or perhaps their system might hook you into their own lab(s) in a way that is very difficult to get your organized images back out of (for example, you have the images but lose the database, with names and ordering information).

 

The sort of people that I think might be most useful to you are the ones who sell or lease printers for such events - their goal is to make it easy (and profitable) for you to use printers and media that you are buying from them. Part of this is to help you keep all the images organized, etc.

 

Ps, if you haven't already discussed this with your current lab, you should. They have probably been through these discussions before. And obviously, they want you to keep your printing business with them.