Landing a School Photo Job

[jamesev]

I heard of a photographer who does school photos and was wondering (and would like opinoins) if this is relatively easy money.

At say £30 for a set of prints for a school of 700 you'd be making £21,000.

If you say over heads would be

Camera £3000
Lens (50mm) £600
Tripod Lighting and Background £2000
Printing 700@£5 £3500

= £9100
That would leave you with a clear £10000, even with some PP time...

Ok I've made some assumptions, such as you'll sell ALL 700 shots, but still this does seem like you could rake in a fair income if you just got into say 10 schools a year...

Thoughts welcomed....

[theosus]

I don't know how it is in your area, Im guessing from the currency you're in England. In all the schools Ive ever been in here in the States, photography is handled by large companies. The photographer gets paid by the hour, not by the shot. The company that takes care of the processing, billing, shipping, printing, etc. takes a big chunk of the profits. LifeTouch and Olan Mills are two of the biggies that I've seen, and you end up working for between $9 and $11 per hour. Thats at most $100 a day for a long day, shooting those same 700 kids.
If you can get a shoot as a private individual in a school, more power to you! I doubt you could do that over here today, unless you gave the school some kickbacks.

[Jim Bryant]

Schools in the US normally get 10-20% and the teachers and get free individual and group class shots as well. Photographers working for Josten's get $10.00 an hour.

[NicoleScraps]

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

Schools in the US normally get 10-20% and the teachers and get free individual and group class shots as well. Photographers working for Josten's get $10.00 an hour.

Our school uses Strawbridge and we (the PTO/school) get 50% of what the parents pay for the photos. So a basic package costs me (the parent) $15 but the school gets $7.50 of that. If you take all of that into account, doesn't seem like a great deal for the photographer, especially if it were a private photographer doing the work as opposed to a company. It is a fund raiser for our school and they could never consider hiring someone privately unless they could compete with these numbers. A private schools or nursery school might be a good way to go though.

[Jim Poor]

Don't forget taxes, gas / mileage, time, computer & software. Camera repairs (How many clicks is your shutter rated at?) Insurance, the contribution to the school, etc.

Then there's the headache of dealing with the kids who don't want to be there, the parents that aren't happy with the photo even though THEY sent their kids to school dressed / groomed that way, etc etc .

No thanks!

[Jim Bryant]

True..once I landed the job from Jostens shooting three grade schools, six elementary schools, four middle schools and two high school while in Panama. The shoot of those Department of Defense schools started in the first week of September and ended the last day of October. Would you believe that parents sent their children to school with messed up hair, snotty noses, smelly and wearing dirty clothes? And to top that off, they all wanted the photos in time to ship off to families by Christmas. It was a nightmare! I'll never do that again.

[lonni]

Dont forget to add in order forms, packaging etc. Also you will need ot think about the logistics of taking payments and making sure you have the right kid etc.

You would also need plenty of memory cards and a relible back up source. I would reccomend shooting tethered and backing up regularly throu out the day to an external hard drive. That way you can check you have good shots.

Also i want to add that taking the school photos is not as easy as you think. My mum has not got one decent school photo, and she has 58 schoolphotos, 5 kids. I even had a massive fly buzzing above my head in one, admittedly that is from the film days.

Pipmly, self consious teenagers are dificult to get and the traditional set up and expected pose does not suit every one, so you will get parents who do not like the shots and will want a refund. You know how hard it is to get a good shot when you get some one to pose.

I dont think it is easy money, but like anything its work, and you dont get anything for free.

HTH

[Jim Bryant]

It's more trouble than it's worth, I'd say!

[andyw]

Originally Posted by jamesev

I heard of a photographer who does school photos and was wondering (and would like opinoins) if this is relatively easy money.

At say £30 for a set of prints for a school of 700 you'd be making £21,000.

If you say over heads would be

Camera £3000
Lens (50mm) £600
Tripod Lighting and Background £2000
Printing 700@£5 £3500

= £9100
That would leave you with a clear £10000, even with some PP time...

Ok I've made some assumptions, such as you'll sell ALL 700 shots, but still this does seem like you could rake in a fair income if you just got into say 10 schools a year...

Thoughts welcomed....

If it was as easy as your are making it sound then I am pretty sure a lot of us would jump at that sort of work.
The truth is nowhere near that.

Firstly - your overheads are way off the mark.
Double up on the cameras, lenses and lights
Printing costs will be higher when you take into account mounts, staff etc.
then you have all the "incidentals" such as transport, insurance, computer equipment and software and the depreciation of all that lot and a lot more.
You have about 9-10k overheads - try in the region of 20-30.
Then off course there are taxes, vat, payments to the schools etc etc.

If you think you will sell 700 packs from a single school shoot then you are dreaming.
You may be lucky and get 50%

Oh off course you will be competing with the "big boys" in schools photography many of which have pretty firm contracts with the local LEA's.


If you did 10 schools a year you would be very lucky to break even.

How do I know. I helped someone who was doing this a few years ago and believe me it was not an easy nor a profitable job without a heck of a lot of very very hard work.

Plus of course you have to deal with snot nosed schoolkids, officious teachers and councils and not least the bloody parents.

[nickbedford]

Wait, wait... So you're thinking of charging someone the cost of your gear?