Doing school pictures for my kids' school is a bad idea, right?
This is really a sanity check on a question that I've already answered, but could still change my mind if I wanted.
Years ago I was a modestly successful wedding & portrait photographer, and got to the point where it was about a third of my income. I got out of it, and moved into IT, because while I loved the photography and the events, I despised running a photography business. Marketing myself, contracts... not my bag. I was never a renowned anything, but a respectable part time pro.
Over the last few years, I've found myself as the defacto school photographer for pretty much every event at my kids' small private school because I still have the gear and the skills. I'm not the dad with the camera. The principle or one of the nuns will call or email and ask me to come photograph various events, and all the parents wait to get links to the google photos gallery. I do this as volunteer work, and I'm happy to do it.
Some of the parents and board members want to stop using Life Touch because of the drama, and have inquired about whether or not I was willing and able to do the school portraits instead, which they would insist on paying for.
My initial response, which I explained to the principal, is that the photography part of doing those kinds of photos is very easy (and I have most or all of the gear), and they're making this request after seeing several years of my work. I did do staff portraits the last two years which they were very happy with. The "photographers" that Life Touch sends out are more like technicians than photographers. They set the camera and lights following a rigid setup, and just click through the shots, so that part is easy. What those big school portrait companies are really selling is the logistics. Tracking names and grades with photos, providing ordering facilities which I used to have, but don't anymore, etc. I'm not sure that I'm equipped to do the logistics unless I go whole hog and pivot back to photography, which I really don't want to do at this point in my life and career.
The Principal thinks everyone would be happy with digital download and minimal logistics, but I'm not sure he understands the extent to which school picture day is more about logistics than photography.
Any thoughts? Am I wrong here? Anybody have experience doing school picture day?
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