Many people ask me, "What makes a studio session for dance schools successful?". Well it's a couple of things. On the photographer's end, there has to be organization. Being organized ensures everything flows smoothly from registration to delivering the final product. My photography studio ensures that the dance studio has no stress for picture day. How do we do that? We take care of everything from registration, scheduling the dancers, communicating with the families about their galleries and being available to parents and dancers that have questions. Let's take a look at how we operate:
All of our registrations are done on line. The only thing the studio has to do is email our welcome letter and website link to their families, that's it, we take it from there. Our welcome letter introduces the studio and the procedures for registering, our order forms are very intuitive and has everything laid out clearly. We also invite the dancers to view our dance portfolio on our website so they can see what they will be receiving. The next thing we do is provide a schedule to the dancers, we always try to get the younger ones in first. Since we are photographing large numbers of dancers, each session is only 5 minutes or less. We try to get a few different poses so that there are a few images to choose from. We just don't take a picture or two and give you what ever we choose. We like to offer a gallery of about four to five different poses so parents can have a choice.
Next, we edit the photos by cleaning up the backgrounds, nothing bothers me more than a wrinkled backdrop! We edit colors, skin tones, stray hairs and blemishes. This process usually takes about a week to a week and a half. Once this is done, parents get an email with a link to their password protected gallery. They can choose the image or images for the package they purchased and will have the option of purchasing more prints and different products for friends and family. There is also an option for them to share their gallery with family and friends to see if there are photos they would like. We also offer other products like coffee cups, water bottles, tote bags, etc. that can have any image from their gallery printed on it. The best part, everything is shipped directly to the dancer, the studio does not have to do a thing!
The Second component for a successful dance studio photo session is to have a dance teacher from the studio present on photo day. We have dance teachers on salary that we can bring to help with posing, but let's face it, kids are going to feel most comfortable with a teacher from the studio. Especially the little ones, the studio's teachers will know what they are good at and know how to get them to laugh and smile naturally.
The third and final component is the readiness of the dancers. They need to know their time and arrive early, why early? some of the costumes are difficult to wear in the car and might need some adjustments before you have your photo taken. Dancers should make sure their hair is done and makeup is the way they like. I suggest light makeup, not heavy. Lastly, the dancers need to prepare a few days before by knowing what type of poses they want for the pictures. There are plenty of resources online for ideas, and practice them so you have it down before the photo.
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