school photos-advise pls

32finn

Hey everyone,

I have been contacted by the local primary school about doing the school pix for this term.
Was wondering if anyone would have some advise about whats involved, as in, what to offer and of course what to charge? etc etc!
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Les

CabanSail

The first thing I would look into is the Insurance aspect of things. If you are charging for this job then you are operating as a contractor. The chances of something going wrong are small but not zero & you need to make sure you have cover sorted.

Paulw

As said, make sure you have full PL and PI insurance. Nothing worse than having an accident or something and ending up in court having to pay costs to someone who tripped on your tripod or something.

Not sure if schools will require you to be Garda cleared, which can take 6-9 weeks to get (working with children clearance).

What to offer, really depends. One 8x12 and 3 6x4?

What to charge will depend on your skill, quality of photos, quality of prints and your costs.

smelltheglove

You want to one the parents that buy off, from my experience speaking to other mothers what they hate is as follows

pay in advance
extra charge for sibling photo
drowdy backgrounds
messy hair

From the recent trip to my girls school by a photographer what I heard back was that some parents were only buying the sibling shot as even though they wanted to buy one of the youngest alone so they could have an individual shot like the older siblings they couldnt afford it since there was an extra €15 for each shot with more than one child, when it could have been 40 for a set of one child i was 55 for the set with 2.

I would be more inclined to bring a more modern process in, where you send one sample shot back per child and per sibling shot and the parents can order what they want from that, i.e. a set of the younger and a 8x10 of the sibling , that way you are keeping costs down by printing only one shot rather than a full sample of each hence you can keep your prices relatively affordable. I would price a set of maybe one 8x10 and 2 5x7 shots and then price individually for 8 x10, 5x7 and 4x6 although some may say you might lose the full set purchases if you price this with a discount i.e. €5 cheaper than bought singally your are giving incentive and you also may find the people less likely to buy an individual shot may just purchase the 4x6 sample sent home.

My daughter didnt have her shots taken in school as there was an upfront payment with only one option which was to buy a full set. I wasnt highly impressed with the samples and when I asked for advice here a big argument insued on boards so please lets not go back to that, however had it been a pay by order and one individual shot sent home I most likely would have bought even just the 4x6.

PCPhoto

32finn wrote: »

Hey everyone,

I have been contacted by the local primary school about doing the school pix for this term.
Was wondering if anyone would have some advise about whats involved, as in, what to offer and of course what to charge? etc etc!
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Les

Whats involved ?

a mobile studio setup - insurance, background, lights, camera (action - couldnt resist ! ) , tripod, chair, paper mounts, printer, big smile, patience - possibly an assistant to ensure child is looking perfect.

what to offer? various packages for parents to choose to suit all budgets from individual images to packages of the same image in seperate sizes)

What to charge? that depends on how much money you want to make and if you want a repeat job - if you can deliver a quality product at a reasonable price there is a high chance you will be offered the job again.
- have a look at what your costs are (mounts, insurance, camera gear, assistant, lighting gear, backdrop etc etc)

how much of a turn around time do you want to give yourself - 2 weeks, 4 weeks....there could be a lot of post processing required and printing all of them and sorting orders will also take time.

EDIT: is it individual pics, class pics, year group pics ? photographing an entire school could take a couple of weeks to get through.

32finn

Hey guys,

Cheers for the replys. I am fairly sorted kit wise and with lighting. As for what rachel had to say about the background, its defo something ive been thinking about changing from the norm but will be running by the principle first.

One thing i defo wont be doing is charging in advance! My sis in law had to do this recently (€45) and the results were a disaster.

Was thinking of a charge of €40 for one 8x10 one 5x7 and two 4x6??
I was also thinking of offering parents with more than one child in the school to have thechildren pictured together only to keep down there costs or a discount on the second, third child and so on!

Some really good stuff above guys, thank you again

Les

P.S If there is anything else i should be aware of pls let me know, cheers.

Hugh_C

Written permission from the parents/guardians - especially necessary around minors.

emul

You will not get Garda clearance to do this type of shoot, I know I tried. I stipulated that I would not shoot without supervision (I had members of PTA there - all women) who arranged the classes under my direction, straightened ties etc. Once post processing is done I am handing over a DVD of all shots taken to the school for them to hold, I retain the copyright. I do differ in the fact that I was doing this voluntarily as a fund raising exercise for the school - I'm also hoping the exposure might gain me other biz. In terms of the backdrop I went for a plain white, which went down a lot better than the 1970's mottled blue that is usually used. Shot with studio lights. Biggest issue with the classes is getting them to all look the right way - I also shot tethered so I could review shots before letting class go.

Good luck - it's hard work.

Eoin

punchdrunk

ah you wouldn't believe the amount of parents we turn away looking for P2P's of school shots,most stare blankly at you when you mention copyright