For those that do senior portraits

Do you just do the casual photo's that they use to give to friends and for themselves, or do you also do the formal pictures that is required for the yearbook, the whole gown and hat combo?

If you do the more formal pictures, do the kids supply their own gown/hat? Or do you provide it?

Looking forward to the response.

Most of the high school pictures around here do formal pictures, but more to the tune of guys in suits and girls in dresses.

msfvirginia wrote in post #9656494
Do you just do the casual photo's that they use to give to friends and for themselves, or do you also do the formal pictures that is required for the yearbook, the whole gown and hat combo?

If you do the more formal pictures, do the kids supply their own gown/hat? Or do you provide it?

Looking forward to the response.

For my work, and for most of the people I know who do high school senior photography, we do no cap and gown work. Most of the time there is a contract photographer who has a contractural lock on the yearbook photographs. Where there is no contractural lock, it tend to follow that the school does not do "cap and gown" but merely has a fairly loose standard for the school picture.

Most of the time, the school photo has zero impact on what most of the senior photographers I know are doing--our work represents an entirely different part of the market from what the school requires. And yes, there will be some more-or-less "formal" photographs...but those are more for the parents than for the school. Mothers usually like portraits with smiles and nice clothing suitable for the wall.

Thanks for the reply.

Last fall I had a customer that wanted a senior portrait, they asked if I provided the cap and gown and I told them that they would either have to get one from the school or something, or go with the official school photographer for those and Ill do the fun/creative shots that is used for friends. They later canceled and said they would go for a family portrait later, never heard back.

msfvirginia wrote in post #9660071
Thanks for the reply.

Last fall I had a customer that wanted a senior portrait, they asked if I provided the cap and gown and I told them that they would either have to get one from the school or something, or go with the official school photographer for those and Ill do the fun/creative shots that is used for friends. They later canceled and said they would go for a family portrait later, never heard back.

Yes. The first question is whether the school even allows outside (non-contracted) photographers to provide cap-and-gown photographs for the yearbook. As I said, some do, but most often a school that allows an outside photographer at all is also relaxed on other aspects of the yearbook photo.

But it could be that in your area there is a market for formal cap-and-gown photographs just for the parents. I'm in the process of fleshing one out right now for college graduates in my area. I actually hadn't considered it--the colleges have their contract photographers as well but they only do the grip-n-grin shot during the graduation ceremony. I did a formal studio portrait of my own daughter (who was graduated last December) and now I'm discovering a lot of people also want a similar formal evidence for their walls of the results of all the money they've spent for four years.

Glad to hear its not normal for us to do the cap and gown pictures. They dont seem to much fun compared to the other pictures.

Have you all tried selling all the senior pictures taken in a session in a press printed book? I was just wondering if they usually buy those if its offered. could be as simple as one image per page even.

And how do you price your rep cards? 50 rep cards *whcc min* is about the same as 6 8x10 sheets of 8 large wallets. If you charge to much and dont get them, you loose out on the opportunity to advertising to their friends and family. Do you charge comparable to your normal 6 print price?

You don't sell rep cards if you want them to use them to refer you to other people. You give them.

I'm not talking about getting a rep in a school, just talking about a regular student wanting pictures done. I figure they will give the "rep cards" to their friends, so I may as well have my contact info on it or at least business name so all their friends will know about me. So if a student wanted to purchase 50 2"x3.5" double sided pictures of themselves on heavy card stock, what would a good price be, based on regular prints. Since you can fit 10 of these on an 8x10 sheet, would you charge the same as 5 8x10 sheets? or discounted since they are unintentionally marketing you?

Yearbook pics in my area are contracted out to a local photographer who has been doing them for like 30 years. I do outdoor senior pics at various locations, and since he doesn't like to leave his studio much, I get the kids who want something a little different than pics of em' on a chair in front of a backdrop.

My sons in H.S. right now so he did quite a bit of advertising for dad

msfvirginia wrote in post #9683837
I'm not talking about getting a rep in a school, just talking about a regular student wanting pictures done. I figure they will give the "rep cards" to their friends, so I may as well have my contact info on it or at least business name so all their friends will know about me. So if a student wanted to purchase 50 2"x3.5" double sided pictures of themselves on heavy card stock, what would a good price be, based on regular prints. Since you can fit 10 of these on an 8x10 sheet, would you charge the same as 5 8x10 sheets? or discounted since they are unintentionally marketing you?

Seriously, that would be a giveaway for me. Actually, I give a stack of photo book markers with my studio information as a freebie. Another idea is to have a bunch of inexpensive "calling cards" printed at someplace like Overnightprints.com with whatever contact information they want on the front and my contact information printed small on the back. But whatever has my contact information would be a freebie.

If they want wallets without my contact info, that would be a charged item.

The schools around here have 2 pages of instructions for the photographers and students to follow. If the shot you submit doesn't follow every line item on the sheet the photo gets rejected. Kind of a pain but it could be worse.

Jon.