School photo session

Before shooting you need to plan and prepare everything well. The schedule, previously sent to the parents, assumed taking pictures of five classes a day for four days in a row, for a total of about five hundred children. Therefore, there were only 45 minutes per class, during which we also had to find the time for group and individual photos. Speaking of individuals, the idea here was to use props in the form of multi-colored dummy books and photo frames with the school logo, apart from the close portraits in the American or medium-sized plan.

The session, though supported by the presence of my wife, who was preparing the children, was one big struggle against time. The props turned out to be a bull’s eye, the interest exceeded our expectations and, apart from the lessons, even every school break was used for photos. I have to admit that after 5-6 hours of shooting at such a pace and school “noise”, at the end of the day there was not enough energy to collect all the equipment again…

From the very beginning I had the idea, that the photo ordering process should be different from what I had experienced as a parent myself. Well, previously the photographer used to print literally all the photos and forward them to the children, who then either paid for them or gave them back. I did not like this psychological trick, which put those parents, who did not want to or could not order the photos and had to return them through their children, in an uncomfortable position. In addition, how much paper was wasted on photos that, after all, did not find recipients. Finally, for common sense, how cheap (i.e. how poor quality) the printing of all photos had to be, if it was profitable anyway even when selling only part of them…

So my idea was based on the presentation of previously retouched photos on an online disk, that the parents had access to. Everyone could see the photos of their child / children beforehand and decide if and, if necessary, which option to choose from the previously presented offer. Thanks to this, there could be no refunds and everyone paid only for their photos, so they could be printed on much better paper.

Below there are a few example photos.