Easter Bunny, Santa, etc. Workflow suggestions?

My photo interests and experience are more landscape/wildlife/rea​l estate. Very little “portraiture” other than family and a couple of weddings done in more og a “documentary/candid” style rather than formal/tradition. Anyway, I got volunteered to photograph children at our church’s Easter egg hunt that is open to the entire community.

There will be someone in a Bunny suit, a backdrop, a bench, etc. I have lighting equipment, pretty basic setup but portraits are really not something I’ve done before. These are “free” for those who attend so not really too concerned about my lack of prior experience.

What I am interested in though is suggestions for the “workflow” of getting the photos to the right people. For privacy reasons and the fact it will be children, these shots will not be available publicly. Folks will need to provide an email address so photos can be sent after the event.

What is the best way to ensure the photo is matched to the “right” email address? I am thinking a card in frame with a unique number that corresponds to the family’s info but in an area that would be cropped out in editing. Concerned that just looking at shots “in order” of name on a roster could get messed up without positive confirmation in the photo itself as an identifier.

Open to other ideas, would like this to be as little labor intensive as possible - as I said this is donated time and effort. Church hosts an egg hunt with 10,000 eggs, expect there will be hundreds of kids, unknown how many will want photos, but could easily be 100 or more.

Not expecting to do any editing other than culling bad shots.


Thanks for any info!

Why not keep it even simpler and have the parent write their email address on the card, then get an extra shot with the card in frame? That eliminates the overhead of matching numbers to info.

mike_d wrote in post #19367118
Why not keep it even simpler and have the parent write their email address on the card, then get an extra shot with the card in frame? That eliminates the overhead of matching numbers to info.

More or less what I was going to suggest. That way you don't have to even worry about cropping/etc; just separate the batches between placard images and cull the name plate images from your final delivery packages.

mike_d wrote in post #19367118
Why not keep it even simpler and have the parent write their email address on the card, then get an extra shot with the card in frame? That eliminates the overhead of matching numbers to info.

This what we actually do in my church. In all, we had four photographers shooting probably a couple of hundred families. I'm the primary guy, and I shot over a hundred over Easter morning myself, probably taking three whole minutes per family.

We did have volunteer helpers who had the primary member of the family (always the mother) fill out an 8.5x11-inch card containing name, email address, phone number, and time of photography. We take one shot with the card and the succeeding shot(s) without the card. Use a broad-point Sharpie.

We vary from event to even on what we do next, depending on how many volunteer helpers we have. This past Easter, we shot in JPEG and turned the cards over to another group of volunteer assistants that emailed them to the primary person, trying to get it all done that same night.

Other times when we don't have enough volunteer assistants, we shoot in RAW, process the images at home ourselves, and place them into the church's Google drive. From there, the volunteer team sends links to individual pictures to the primary person. That process will take a couple of days.

A couple of times in the past, we have tried more technological means, such as having people register online and getting registration numbers, then photographing their phones with their registration numbers and matching that to the registration database.

But that proved to be too painful trying to handle large numbers at less-than-five-minute intervals. Too many hangups with phones, and photographing phones is more dicey than photographing large cards.