Igor,
I am a survivor of the school photography grind as well as other strains
of the volume portrait biz. In schools I was primarily involved in
individual sets, but also tasked with group wrangling until I moved into
shooting groups as needed. Interestingly, my other duty was to track
down and photograph those members of the faculty/staff who had not shown
up for their sittings, which was fun, in a stalkery way.
But anyway, yes, quality varies. I was fortunate to work for a pretty
large outfit with current equipment and plenty of it; at larger schools,
we'd have a crew of eight shooters, each with lights, backgrounds,
stools, and cameras fitted with magazines holding two hundred feet of film.
Later I did some contract work with smaller companies and it was a
matter of showing up on site with whatever stuff you could find at the
office. And of course a newer one-person shop may not yet have all the
goodies.
So it depends on how the school bid out the contract, whether the
contract holder subs it out or has a crew on hand, etc. Plus, the biz
has a pretty high turnover rate due to the mediocre pay, the travel, and
the sometimes 18 to 20 hour days of drive, set up, shoot, break down and
drive back, so you might have a brand new hire thrown out there to cover
the shoot after a few hours of training.
I found it effective to shoot three frames of a group. I'd tell them I
needed two good, smiling, eyes-open shots and reward them with a
do-whatever-you-want frame. This got me a high percentage of keepers and
ensured a welcome next time I showed up.
That tactic also worked with the tougher, at-risk kids. Give me a
straight up portrait, and then you can flash whatever gang signs or
stabby eyes you want.
As far as making money on this, you can, but it's in volume. You have to
hustle a lot of schools, keep a tight schedule, and shoot, shoot, shoot,
in sweaty gyms or wherever they can fit you, and you have very little
time. I remember sitting in my motel room one night after a big shoot,
filling out the paperwork. I did some quick math and figured out that I
had had a little under a minute per student, eight to ten for a class,
and whatever I could carve out for the stalker shots.
It's a tough dollar, for sure, and it may sound horrific, but I had a
lot of fun and I'm glad I did it. I learned a lot about lighting--I bet
I could still do one company's standard set up in my sleep--and I
learned to make quick decisions, something I still depend on for some
things I shoot.
I don't think your expectations are too high, especially in these
digital days, and I'm sorry you're disappointed in the group shot. You
might want to let the school/school district know, because the feedback
they get from parents could affect their decision regarding future
contracts.
Hope this helps.
On 2/20/18 7:01 PM, Igor PDML-StR wrote:
Dear PDMLers,
I'd like to hear your opinion on this, especially from the point of view
of those who did/does "seating session" photography (if anybody).
We just received the annual class photograph for my child. (We usually
do not purchase individual ones, but buy group photographs, as a memory
for the kid.)
We've had some photographs from the previous years, and the quality
varies. Most of the time all these photographs are ... ghm ... at the
"OK" level. But it is expected, so, I am sort of content with that.
It was only once that the quality was above my expectation.
And I think it is typical for different times and places:
I remember that most most of my formal class photos were mediocre. One
was so bad that the parents rebelled and made the photographer to redo
the shooting properly (or maybe they got a different photographer, and
forced the first one to refund the money, I don't remember).
So, here comes my question: On this year photograph, I see two kids with
their eyes closed, and three with their eyes not visible at all because
their glasses were totally covered by the flash reflection.
So, 5 out of 19 kids (and 3 teachers) have their eyes not visible.
Do you think this is normal?
My thinking is as follows:
Seating-session photographs (i.e. posed) is a separate area where one
needs to have a skill to have it right (setting, light, poses, people
management), plus some when it concerns kids. And that's what the
photographer gets her/his money for. I do not expect
a masterpiece, but I'd like to see no trivial problems.
Is my expectation unreasonable?
Thank you in advance,
Igor
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