Lessons

Lesson Info

Introduction to Volume Workflow

This is our seniors is very formal again don't worry about the formalities don't worry about the actual photographs just worried I'm going to kind of go through some of the steps that we do so what we do is this is our set up you can see we actually use larson three before soft boxes and umbrellas it actually helps us in multiple ways we have four to six image I mean station set up in a very small area and originally we'd have just two umbrellas side by side and the problem with two umbrellas that forty five degree angle is for people who wear eye glasses you're always going to get eyeglass glare from one of those umbrellas so that was a big issue without shuriken pay my lab to do it or shuriken take two photographs and you know photo shop but I didn't want to do anything I want to capture it good on location and so in a portrait world we were taught years ago tohave a soft box off to the side but I'm sitting right here myself boxes over here on my main client that's throwing a lot aro...

und life well so we took that and rolled it over into our world so we use the three by four is our main which is that right here and what's neat about it is if you sit you can see the pose and still right below it when that person sits in that pose and still to be photographed that three by four not only gives beautiful light paired an umbrella so we've already improved the light already improved the quality of photographs win win for the parents but the school didn't care about that but for us because we have three or four stations five stations six stations going off that three before also you have three before were here when it kicks this three about four blocks the light from the next station so you don't have a lot of spillage of light and finally when the kids is down they look over they can't see his best friend's sitting over there to mess with him saying you're going to smile you're going like they can't see each other so it's a it's a blockage also so that whole thing gives better quality of image blocks the light and keeps the kid from seeing the other stations so it it's a multi it was there for reasons not just for one purpose so we have three before for our main and we have an umbrella for our field you can see above the background one of the things we do we use pop ups and what's the need about that is we used one light stand so we have one life stand that the papa bag job hangs off up and then we mount our hair light on top of that so instead of having to have a bag around stand and then another stand for a hair light we knock it all out with one fell swoop so it's saved us money per station and then we have like so the umbrella for field and we have won back light for our background so basically again we chose the three before south box that we found only gave us better light like we talked about so here's susan this is our early days our first year we couldn't afford all our backdrop I mean I saw boxes so we borrowed soft boxes from france so don't be afraid of borrow soft boxes we did that as well but basically have it all set up it literally rolled they literally just come right down the road but in our stations one thing if you shoot set up multiple stations have one station like I said set up just for your life skills you're handicapped children we have it is this first station while this child's not fall into that but the point was it's closest to the wheelchair ramp so we always set up a station is closest to the handicap wheelchair ramp just for them we can shoot other children on there but anybody is going to live skills that's their stations so when life skills comes in and there's other kids no one comes the one on ly the life skills will come to one that way it set and it's easy for them. Then we also set up another station for any problems, anything that we have and you're going to see them are we barcode all our kids, barcode all our clients, but it's gonna be a perfect scenario because we have new employees here, creative lives, we're going to photograph that we don't have markets from and they were going to get him two minutes and no, I don't want him. I want to use them as kids that we come into this to the school or coming to the sports league, that you don't know who they are, so we're going to treat him as unknowns any those problems you want on another station, so all problems are on one station, so when you come in for post work and you have all these possible issues, you're going to make it if you spread them out on all these stations, you're going tohave you start pulling all these problems from all the station and gets really confusing, but if any of your issues are all on one station, it's a lot easier to solve those problems and find them find those original files and then we do the same thing we put our problems and our teachers. All the same station because teachers will come in even though we set up for them to get photographed before they weren't ready. They didn't have hair make up. They're going to want a photograph to replace that when whatever. We always have a station for teachers as well. Because most time they're not gonna have a bar code. They just have a name tag or something that we just photographed that know who they are. We mainly sort it later. So it's nice to know where to put all those problems. So those are big things that we do when we have it. So again the din. Easy, easy backdrops and there's again. We showed you that earlier our overall production with the slide show going and the one thing we found we use radio popper products. We use the juniors on our volume and will soon be rolling over to their nana, which is new. That's only got four channels because they're less expensive. But the neat thing about this our first year we had six stations, twenty four lights. So we needed twenty four junior receivers. You have more than one station. You've gotta have a wireless transmitter on each one of your going tohave optical slaving those flashes were going to be fired all over the place. That's not good so there's work we had we said ok we're going twenty four wireless units we hooked them all up with cords all this good stuff everything fire but then we had major problems they all fired they fired religiously perfect but then when one light went out one battery went out on like our field lines only pushed the button the other three lights fired until three or four kids down the road that we realize that that light wouldn't firing and so the ratio was off the whole energy looks different so what we ended up doing was well, we go back to it we actually created and if you can see this is actually the same court is actually radio I mean he's actually just speaker wire cody actually went to radio shack and a little genius and actually created his own state cord and so we created a sink or that actually will hook up all four flashes and we run off one radio popper receiver so now not only does it save you money now I only need six receiving seven twenty four but when that one battery goes out none of my flash is fire and I know it's time to change the battery so it solved multiple problems save me a lot of money and it gave me a better images and you can buy splitters. You can do other stuff what what else but that's something that you need to think about you have one station it's not that big of a deal but even then it's better to have it all wired one trigger device and then we made some extra said it make extra time for your teachers we went over that and then we made some what they called dickie's we actually I could find the velcro fake shirts with the like bow ties for touched you could find the formal ones we couldn't find just a tie and these boys will come in from football practice from baseball practice whatever their sweaty and I have the cowboy hat on there have their baseball cap on there just take it off okay take a photo I mean it looked like crap and so what we've done cody actually did this as well to actually cut all these up and that's just a clip on time so you literally can just throw that rotter on their neck it's velcroed and it's instant church clothes so it doesn't matter what size of nectar has so for formals even if you're not doing cap and gown but for formal is this work really, really well it's very very simple works for the little pinhead all the way to the big thick neck kid works well and then on overcoming her name and some preschool again we offer the five year imposes different packages a few extra items can be added on we talked about all that different does all this gray backdrop weaken gel him when we jail? If you decide to jail and we're going to go over this, but if you decide to jail and you have a great backdrop, I highly suggest using one light per color, so if you're going to jail three colors red balloon a red, purple and green, you want three background lights and have a permanent red jill over a permanent green of the next line and a permanent purple over the other one because if you don't, what we started off doing would have liked package of five jails and one background light and we marked on their where each light power needed to because if you don't have the same like power let's say with a red jail you're going to get deep back dark red on one backdrop and you're going to get bright pink on the other if you put too much light and so that started being a problem for us when we started putting your books, all our colors were different, so we started using a light per color with a stationary so the power is always the same and it really, really helped our work and again we're going over, but that was one problem we came up with it was really an issue and then the other thing is, when we do have multiple colors, if you're not using green screen, all most popular backgrounds, we actually set up a station. So in this case, what we would do for a school, we would set up three stations, we set up two gray backdrops and one blue backdrop so the grey and the block purple rescuing the grain, the blue or the most popular colors. So when they came in with their pre order forms that have whatever color check they want, it was gray and blue are always the two big popular ones, so we'd have to stations grand blue set up that could filter two then the other grey was our jail backdrop, so any other colleague would go to that jail backdrop. If we get to a point where we didn't have very many jails, the gray would also be a second great backdrop that we could send the other brace to to get through. So it worked out really, really well, even if you're just two shooters, one shooter, you can set up those stations if you work towards that because we could do it if it's begin with we work towards that it was an easy way to do the jails again under class we talked about it with pre sale are seniors. Were post sale, so we had there's this is a private school with the throw. We don't do that, throw much of the top. But again, this is very traditional on we do post cells very simp classic poses either hold the hat or hold the diploma mean nothing out of the world here, guys, this is basic stuff, but you'd be amazed it. How many parents want these photos the kids get? Can I tell you what we had at the proofs? You're in the cafeteria there, girls go. You see your snow and the okay on three. We're going to look in there. Go one, two, three. Oh, oh, I mean that's. So you can't it's kind of cool not to like when your high school so you know it, but it's not made for the kids it's made for the parents these photographs for, for the parents, not for the kids and so we also make free posters that put the seniors on again. We're talked early in the program. We went to this student council find out things when we went to the soon councils to give me four seniors that you want on your senior poster to advertise school photos, so they picked the four to come to us. Again these are senior so then we want to start working when we want to start followed raffle so they picked these four kids they came to us and then we put him on the back and you can tell it you gotta tell these kids step by step what to do because they're idiots so you literally have each kid have one of these we put posters around the school like we talked about it build senior week up it builds a big because this is the beginning of school year it's their first big deal saying holy cow on a senior and when they put on that cap and gown and they go up they said a lot of crying a lot of it just hits them that they're a senior in high school and we build that up big time and so things like this help again are three poses and so we have proof sheets so basically and we're going to go over this tomorrow we would design a poor sheet leaving all the unique information per kid blank and designing just with all the permanent information for everything we save that as a j peg and we can open that up in the program and we can drop in all their information that proves and everything on a batch format so we have five hundred seniors we can knock out these once we get everything lined up where I want and about thirty seconds to a minute all five hundred proofs and it saves it by the last name first name so then we can put him out. We could send you are allowed to put him out we can get we can do a digital files you want uploaded for parents to look at proof sheets, and when little johnny loses his proof sheet or mama finds it in a backpack four years later, we always still have a more filing off about a quarter so little giant lose it mom calls or she says I never saw a proof sheet, which is the weak link because usually it's the boys, you know exactly where they are and you can just e mail it to her. I like to keep everything in house. I don't like anything to go out outhouse I don't like anything to go out of the house, I want everything inside and so when we have problems everything's here and I can fix it, I don't have to rely on anything. And then on the back we market we market the heck we never miss an opportunity to market, so were photographed and their high school homecoming in two thousand ten or it's the seniors from that school and we're going to be photographing lex and that we have a senior sell whatever we're always marking every step away don't lose that opportunity. So many von photographers forget about the other things about marketing and so many people that are not involved in things isn't anything to do with the regular business when reality, the intermingle, every chance you get some other chances. So other stuff and again, all these kids are kids from that high school, so when those kids get that, they're gonna recognize every single one of these kids. And then finally, I mentioned it earlier money spent is money for gotten so this is kind of a re order form that we designed, so we designed it blank these air, the kids from that school, after you get permission to use, you dropped the proofs, the kid's actual photographs up in this blue square, and then down in this big, bold red squares. When we put their pass code, I'd fold that in half, put the top part with the proofs are on the very top of the little glass ing envelope that comes back from the lab, where you shove it in there and put it in there that we, the passcode, is not shown on the outside, so the kids protection, but yet they're kids proofs are on there, and so now, after money spent money forgot, they go online, and this is where we would use. Polio, this is where we you shoot proof is where we use all that, and we push him directly online in this would tell him exactly how to go online and order it or you just tense into your side, and from there they could view the images and in the way you can upload it from photo velocities, all the sub categories and everything so you could do, you know, brad's with high school night, tenth, eleventh, twelfth grade folders, and in ninth grade there, off about a holder, and he just does it all for you, so we try to market and hit them up every step of the way, and you could do this differently, your community, because each one's gonna have a little bit different marketing little incident, have different needs, and once with point is everything is very personal. Everything again has questions, call us don't call the school, heat the headaches away from them, give us the headaches that make sense, any questions? We're getting close to the end of the day. I know I've been talking like a madman. We've thrown a ton of information out today, so I want to make sure we're all cut off today so good, so it's kind of contact with rafe, do you have a question for the graduation pictures? What grade cd I like to do anything that graduates if they're graduating from shipping school we don't even have a shipping community I want to do it I want to do any graduation possible because it's going to be a positive because it's a big moment it's a big milestone thank you in someone's life that's why he's here and so we want to photograph it but realistically if you can get pre schools are always better again the more they're puppies the better they are I even follow on instagram puppy instagram and to look at puppies and it's like I'm having a bad day and you look at a public all okay, I can go you know and that's what babies are so the smaller they are the more you want I can remember the first time I heard about kindergarten graduation you like men that's a stupid thing I ever heard of but now that I'm photographing hey that's great I love that it's two more of those so yeah so from preschool candy garden and then definitely high school I mean those are the big ones you know realistically I would hope high school graduation it's not the greatest milestone for these kids obviously you want them to go on to college but most we have a few people each year that come back to us for college graduation photos but that's just not big here in the states it's the high school graduation and other parts of the country, its opposite and other parts of the world it's opposite. But for us, it's definitely high school is the big ones, but everyone has to have some type of portrait, but the little ones you know you're going to get almost every single package sold for preschool and in sports, you're going to get almost every single family to buy a small package. So in sports leagues down in our area, especially baseball and softball and soccer, almost every family will buy a package. And so that's, why you have to kind of work with that low end. You want to make sure that lower economics can afford it? You want to make sure if there is a true problem, you can give them one, but you can put into equation for schools fifty percent, depending it ranges it's a wild range, but for our sports are sports are a lot higher, bypassed by him and daycares because they're puppies, you're with lack of space like pre schools, you know, they don't always have a huge classrooms. Yeah, that's a great question. What we try to do is set it up beforehand with the principal again, make a big deal of usually with those you could do, maybe in the cafeteria. If you do it in off time or before or after the lunch or maybe in the gymnasium if it's not the same as a cafeteria because usually the pants you're gonna want to come up so usually in some former graduation if you could do it on graduation day even get their war that happened dressed up and come right off and get the photograph taken and move off kind of like what we do for our college that's kind of what we try to do because then you have the reason to be in the big room with the family and then also the family sees you take those photographs and they get excited and you give them right in the order in right now or you'll have samples up or whatever else and if you're starting and don't have any samples I guarantee if you find one of those parents who have a kid and say come in the studio let's get some photographs of you I'll give you eight by ten or I'll give you an iphone case or I'll give you a magnet or you know, a t shirt or whatever for coming in and let me use your child as marketing they're gonna eat it up so that's kind of how it but lots of times yeah you're in small corners we've used water flashes before we try to use studio stroke because they're easier we get soft boxes but I mean I said yesterday in class I shot santa photos with my daughter when she was in daycare for years was just flashes because we didn't have any word but that is something that you need to talk to them initially when your initial communication you don't wait until the day of the portrait and I say oh, we've got this room set aside for you here and it's not even big enough for take it squeeze into much has put off because what they think is plenty of room for you is generally not plenty enough room for you you need to go check out the space every time if it's a new venue you check out the space before photo day so nick pintel photography is asking this was back when you were talking about ieds hey says when you talk about the ad on such a school ideas et cetera some smaller businesses they're not able to purchase the items at a price that the bigger companies get them for on dh what that ends up doing is driving up there cost and lowering their profit margin said you have suggestions on how to handle absolutely and that goes back to what we talked about unfortunate that's just like I said the national companies they got you can't compete with him dollar for dollar and when you go through labs and other stuff those ideas are gonna cost you more because they're not buying the huge bulk that the national companies do so we beat him with customer service I know it's kind of sounds redundant but I will make sure I make my money back but if I have to provide them and solve issues and that if me getting this job is the ideas I want to make sure they have ideas I'm going to search around maybe it's not the quality I you used to make general the national company's done a great quality anyway so that's advantageous to us but the main thing is I have to beat them in areas that they can't do so he needs is to figure out what he can do that they can't this is a positive and the other guy's field in seven years so he needs to figure out some positive and his what he does and bring that to the table again as I said don't talk about what they do well you talk about what you do well and hopefully it's enough to make up for that difference I know it's not an easy way to do it but that's what we do and maybe you can adjust the profits on other items it's kind of like the whole gas station thing you may lose money selling gas but you're gaining selling cheetos or cokes or whatever else so you can lower the price of something initially but raise your prices somewhere else to make up for that awesome when last question matthew the body oh no, I don't want his question I actually know this individual he actually has a really good ball in business. This is gonna be interesting. Awesome! Now he along with a handful of other people in the chat rooms, were asking about how you deal with moms who are shooting over your shoulder and utilizing your lighting and background that's one reason why we have transmission devices on every single one of our life, so we're going under expose very much like we taught and are off camera lighting if we're outside for their sports venue, we definitely under exposed our overall image and bringing that background it's the grass or if it's whatever else and make those images look so sharp and crisp, but they usually can't get to we really strategically lay out our plan where we're going to photograph we just go back to what we just talked about. We always go see the photo photo location and like for our little league and for our softballs and other stuff we actually have, like drainage ditches or some natural landmark that's on there that we set up that keeps the pants off of us so our whole don't gold of the day is is we're going to have some cattle herding, you know, ropes and stuff for the kids to go into line up keep those in order, but the overall goal is definitely keeping the parents off of you because that's the biggest problem when we shoot our dance studios and they come to our studio, we don't allow parents in the shooting, right? We have big signs they don't come down the hallway, they don't come in there. No parents allowed because the problem is and it's true, you're going to have a bunch of little kids use the little girls and they're gonna have four, five parents going, oh boy, yeah, everybody's excited and those little kids are like they don't know how to look at, and so you're going to take a ton of photos trying to get him to look at you and if you just get him out and then the other thing is that the kid is upset and then they're upset more the parent, not the photographer, the parent would just leave nine times out of ten the kid's going to smile, they're going to do what they're supposed to do, but when the parent starts getting, they feel that added pressure, they feel like they're going to disappoint their parents, they start getting upset and then you have the dad of the mom says, if you don't do this, I'm gonna spank your backside and then they'd just move on and then you're like, great so absolutely try to just kick out all the parents that we can when we can't kick him out. We definitely try to rope it off toe where they're going to get a photograph, for sure, especially when you're outside. But it's going to be a worst photograph than you provide them, and typically, the people to bring out along the cameras that are trying to shoot over shoulders. If they're not gonna buy the night, provide anyway. So it's not gonna matter. So, I mean, what should we do? A pre so you can't lose sleep over.