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  4. Need some advice on getting started photographing high school seniors?

Need some advice on getting started photographing high school seniors?


10 years 5 months ago #313265 by Wayne Tidwell
I graduated last year from high school, and last month I started visiting the school and handing out flyers for senior portraits taken by me. This lasted for a couple days before I was told I can't be doing that. So I figured I would put flyers on all the cars , well that didn't go too well either. I contacted the school and they said that they already had a company that was contracted to come in and take the needed photos and they reminded me that I couldn't hand out any flyers or business cards on their property. I'm just getting started and have invested most of my money into my gear. What ways can I advertise to high school seniors and not break what is left in the bank. Which isn't much. Any ideas would be super appreciated.

Wayne
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10 years 5 months ago #313317 by Stealthy Ninja
What I'd like to see is some examples of photos you've taken before.

If you can't show your work you won't get very far. People will just stick with the ol' photographer the school has a contract with (they may be better than you, so your first step is to get better than them, give them a reason to choose you over the other photographer).
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www.aevansphoto.com
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10 years 5 months ago #313381 by effron

Stealthy Ninja wrote: What I'd like to see is some examples of photos you've taken before.

If you can't show your work you won't get very far. People will just stick with the ol' photographer the school has a contract with (they may be better than you, so your first step is to get better than them, give them a reason to choose you over the other photographer).


Yeah, this is true. You must get your work out there, and if its going to take that contracted business, it better be good....
Why so serious?
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10 years 5 months ago #313471 by Drew Fletcher
Have you done a search on Facebook for or sites like Classmates for others from your school? That might be a good point of access to reach these seniors.
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10 years 5 months ago #313609 by StephanieW
I've worked for school photography companies and they are all contracted out a year in advance. Sometimes more. I admire your determination, but these companies are typically HUGE multi-million dollar companies with school district contracts (occasionally just a single school, but the ones I worked for had their hold on entire districts most of the time). That said, as others have said, you could always become a popular alternative if your work is good enough. Just trying to directly circumvent contracts like that is not the best route. Word of mouth. Online advertisements maybe. Start a blog with a portfolio. Talk to your friends. :) Or make a deal with the devil and try to work for the school portrait company lol. The ones I worked for paid decently.
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10 years 5 months ago #313633 by sleeper54
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I am sure high schoolers in my area are responsible for finding their own photographer for their senior pictures. No 'contracting out' an entire 'school population'.

Around here it would be the classical question of marketing oneself and one's work . . .which has already been discussed earlier.


...tom...
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10 years 5 months ago #313673 by StephanieW
That's interesting. I was in California. Worked for 2 different school photography companies and was well aware of a third that was always our competitor. It was typically the same company that did yearbook and ID pictures. Essentially everyone in the schools got packages and the students could call up the place, schedule portraits, and get it done in a certain window of time. It was required that you went in and got the pictures so that they all looked uniform in the yearbook, but if you wanted to buy anything extra you had pay for that. You could just get a simple portrait shot or you could go all out and do the whole holding diploma or posing with props thing. But yep. Entire school districts would be contracted through one company. They liked to keep the yearbooks uniform basically.
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10 years 5 months ago #313711 by Stealthy Ninja
Wait, there's a different market for school photos (like official ones for schools) and photos "Seniors" get of themselves to remember what they looked like (I assume this is why), right?

I'm not too familiar with the phenomenon of senior photos. It's not really a thing in Australia or Hong Kong.
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www.aevansphoto.com
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10 years 5 months ago #313731 by garyrhook

Stealthy Ninja wrote: Wait, there's a different market for school photos (like official ones for schools) and photos "Seniors" get of themselves to remember what they looked like (I assume this is why), right?


Correct. Senior portraits have nothing to do with school pictures. If Wayne wants to do senior portraits he should research how to start that kind of business (there are lots of ideas on the interwebs). But it shouldn't be done at the high school.
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10 years 5 months ago - 10 years 5 months ago #314169 by StephanieW
Strange. Ok. Well, the companies I worked with in the bay area California did both. Maybe it's a regional thing, but we covered schools in the San Jose/San Francisco/Marin County areas. So I guess my experience is just those three specific rival companies (I worked for 2/3 of them) in that specific region. Sorry. But they definitely did both there. The companies that did the senior pictures versus yearbook pictures had different names, but had the same "parent" company. I hate to be argumentative, but these were my employers so while maybe this doesn't work elsewhere, it worked like that where I was employed
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10 years 5 months ago - 10 years 5 months ago #314173 by StephanieW
double post sorry
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10 years 5 months ago #314359 by Josh Jofoto
I would think social media is going to be your best friend here. Does your school have any sort of offsite sporting events, better yet have you tried other schools around where you grew up?
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