Archive for senior portrait photography

"How’s Business?"

“How’s business?” is a frequent question we get asked. You probably get asked this too. But are you ever the one asking the question. I encourage other photographers to look outside of their industry to examine other businesses. This is a valuable resource that should be utilized.

senior Model winners from 2009,2010, and 2011

There is a restaurant here in our city that my wife and I frequently attend. And when I say frequently I mean 2-3 times a week…for the last 8 years. If you follow my twitter feed (@johndpyle) you can probably guess the place I am talking about. In fact my parents went Friday night and we went Saturday night to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. Now I do love their food. It is superb and prepared perfectly. But that is not the main reason we go. There are a few other places to eat that have decent food in town. They are also the one of the most, if not THE most expensive place to eat in town. So we don’t go there to save money. We go there because of the experience. The staff always recognizes us and greets us by name upon arriving. The bartenders know my wife’s favorite glass of wine and have it poured before we even sit down. The staff is always pleasant, excited to see us, and appear to go out of their way no matter what. In fact the owner comes over to personally greet us every time we visit. The food is always perfect and they always go above and beyond. Now I am not narcissistic enough to think that we are the only ones they treat like this. And I know this because there is a 30-90 minute wait on weekends to eat so other people must feel this way too. But we are made to feel like we are special and that we are the most important costumers they have. They know, understand, and implement flawless customer service and an unmatched experience. Read More→

3 Ways of Connecting with Your Subject

We just returned from our 2011 senior portrait conference (spa) in Palm Springs California. We had our 3rd model winner in a row from across the country and she won the Top Model award! We are so proud of Kristen!

2011 Senior, Kristen

There were some great images out at spa but this year I “observed” a lot more than I have in the past. We followed Kristen and her mom around on day #3 of spa where she has session with other photographers to see them work and teach.

One of the things that spa celebrates is the best of the best in high school senior photography. And the best of the best senior photographers are all there. A consistent theme that I saw with these photographers was the “connection” they made with the subject, the speed at which they connected with them, and the ease in which they did so. This, of course, translated to a an incredible experience for all the seniors chosen to attend, the photographers, and allowed for some gorgeous images to be created. Read More→

What’s Appropriate for Senior Pictures?

I’m a husband, a father to an 18 month old daughter, and a high school senior photographer who makes a living by bringing a camera around 17 year old girls. I am also sensitive (maybe hypersensitive) to the appropriateness of the images I create AND the images we release online.

A few months ago a woman in passing (not a customer but a regular viewer of our website) made a statement to me and my wife that she would NEVER let her daughter take senior pictures in a swimsuit. Now that is fine with us. We don’t ask senior customers to take pictures in their swimsuits nor do we advertise swimsuit sessions for seniors. But she repeated this opinion several times throughout the conversation, and it felt more like an “insult” directed at us. And, yes, having a Masters in Psychology allows me to deduce that from the conversation.

It so happened to that the image she was looking at was from a professional modeling portfolio of a college freshman we had posted last summer. The model  needed swimsuit images for her modeling portfolio that we created for her on location. The customer and her parents were thrilled with the images and released the images themselves on Facebook with our approval. Now I did explain this to the woman who brought up the swimsuit image and obvisouly didn’t read the blog post…but I doubt she cared to understand it.

Anyway living down in the South, on the banks of the Chattahoochee River, a lot of our seniors have grown up on the backwaters every weekend since they were little…skiing, tubing, jet skiing, riding boats and wave runners, grilling out, and laying out in the sun with their friends and families . They also live driving distance to the beach and the Gulf Coast of Florida. This was and is an important part of their summers, their childhood, their lives, and of course their last summer in high school. And some of our seniors AND their parents ask if their child can incorporate this into their senior experience sessions. Some have beautiful homes, pools, and boats up on the backwaters and in Florida where these are shot on location. Read More→

10 More Steps: A Sarcastic Business Plan

10 things to jeopardize your senior photography business:

Everyone always talks about steps to success. They are all over my twitter feed and other blogs especially with the New Year upon us. Some of them are excellent posts. But I do love some funny posts every now and then. Since I am iced in down here in Georgia and feel like being a little sarcastic I decided to write about  some great steps you can take to sabotage or stall your senior photography business. A recipe for NOT succeeding if you will. So take a look at these 10 steps and follow through with them if you want your 2011 to be a year to remember.

*Have fun with this post as it was written in a lighthearted manner. And note: I am not looking down on others from the top of my 70-200mm…just posting some funny topics. We have all probably done some of the steps if not all of them. Happy New Year and enjoy the sarcasm!

1. Wing it – Make sure your photoshoot with the senior has no goals or direction. Just show up with your camera at a location of your choice. Start shooting pictures at random places, titling the lens every other picture, and stare at the back of your LCD screen a lot. It is better to look at the screen on the back of your camera than at your subject. Oh and don’t talk much. Customers like it better when you give no direction. Do not give feedback to the senior. Keep her and her parents guessing as to how the image looks.

2. Buy the most expensive equipment, even if you don’t know how to use it – It is always a good idea to get a 1.2 lens even if you don’t know what Aperture or f-stop mean. When shooting a senior with a group of friends or her family as long as you are at 1.2 something in the picture will be “tack sharp” even if it is just an ear. Read More→

The "Secret" to Beautiful Senior Pictures

Recently I spoke at a local photography workshop and  someone made a comment that it has to be easy shooting only “pretty people”. Another photographer jokingly communicated to me that it “wasn’t fair” that we got to photograph all the “attractive people”. To that I laugh and say I’ll take that as a compliment. I do have to say that every one of the seniors that we photograph is beautiful…inside and out. But some people don’t understand that most of the senior girls do not walk around looking like they do for their senior session…just as a bride doesn’t walk around everyday looking like she does on her wedding day.

I think as a professional photographer that it is your job to find what is “beautiful” about your clients and focus in on that for their images. That can be their eyes, their hair, their smile, their laugh,…anything that makes them look good and feel good about themselves. That can only HELP you in creating images the senior and their families  can be proud of. Read More→

3 Things to Consider when it comes to Senior Photography

In the last article, I addressed both the importance and the enjoyment of senior photography. To me there are three things to consider before moving forward and making senior photography a major part of your business.

1) Are you LAZY? – The class of 2011 has had me lying on my back at night photographing in the middle of Times Square, dodging waves off the coast of Florida, and looking out for snakes in a creek with a senior from Tennessee. This past weekend I photographed a high school senior who flew in with her family from New Jersey. I photographed her, edited her images, and had them ready to view and order in one afternoon. Read More→