Student portraits play a huge role in your yearbook. In most circumstances, portraits make up 25%to 30% of the yearbook. Planning for the school photo day is critical because you will want to be sure to include every student and have each portrait be the best possible.
Here are a few suggestions for planning a photo day that will include every student, teacher, and adult on campus:
Meet with your school administrator to discuss your portrait photography needs. Many times the administration is involved in school photographer selection process. Make sure the administration knows about your need for a properly formatted student portrait CD. Ask the administration how they would like to be kept informed of all portrait shoot dates and services provided by the photographer.
Receive confirmation of your responsibilities – are you the person who schedules the date or is the administration in charge of the calendar? Are you responsible for administration of the portrait program?
Issues you will want to discuss include:
Portrait shoot and retake dates Services provided/Portrait CD
Photo packages and prices Selection of a photographer
Scheduling procedures
Meet with the photographer as soon as possible to review their offerings and packages to the student body and faculty. Discuss the same issues you discussed with your administration. If the photographer is selected by a bid process, secure all documentation from your purchasing office pertaining to bid specifications, pricing, and services.
Once you have agreed to the logistics of the portrait services and photo shoot date and secured approvals of dates with administration, you need to develop a plan for heavily promoting the portrait shoot date to everyone on campus. The best timeline for promotion of portrait day is:
One month before Shoot: Get placed on the school calendar so EVERYONE knows the portrait day is coming. Get the school website to post a notice on the school web page. If report cards or progress reports are going home, send a message home with them. Get the message out to everyone.
Two Weeks before Shoot: Put up posters to promote the shoot date. Your photographer may have posters available for you to use. Post them all over the campus and be sure to put a message on your school marquee.
One Week before Shoot: Send a message or flyer home to parents notifying them that school portrait/yearbook photo day is arriving next week. Let them preview package listing and prices as well. Let them know what their child will need in the sense of money. Start announcements on the school intercom system. If the school has a website, put an announcement on the website.
Day Before Shoot: Get messages out on colored flyers in teacher boxes, lockers, car windshields and more. Make more school intercom announcements. Have staff talk to people in the lunchroom. The key is promotion for a good turnout.
Day of Shoot: Try to have your yearbook staff assist in the shoot process by assisting the photographer, as well as, trying to sell yearbooks during the day of the photo shoot. Start selling yearbooks as soon as you start photos, so students can reserve a copy early.
Creating the student portrait section of your yearbook can be very easy IF you request a properly formatted CD using the PSPA (Professional School Photographer’s Association) guidelines. (The guidelines are available over the internet at http://www.pmai.org/pspa.) The portrait CD will save you time because it will eliminate your labeling hundreds of photos and typing hundreds of names. (If you are using the EZBook program you must have this CD.)
Communication is the key to receiving the correct portraits.To assure best results do the following:
Schedule your school’s photo and retake days as early as possible.
Work with your photographer to determine how you will provide the student data file. The student data file is usually available through the registrar’s computer at the school office.
The data you will need is: First Name, Last Name, Grade, and Homeroom. This data is usually exported by the registrar as an ASCII file or CSV file (comma-delimited or tab-delimited file). If no such format is available, you can export the data to Microsoft Excel and then prepare the four columns as listed above. Save them as SAVE AS, a comma delimited file. Your photographer can help you with this.
For clarification, be sure to ask if there is a fee for the photo CD. Tell the photographer what kind of image will be needed for your yearbook (color or black and white) which is determined by whether your yearbook will be printed in full color or in black and white. It is RECOMMENDED that your portrait CD be furnished AFTER retake day. You want all portraits on one CD.
If your yearbook representative is from the same studio that is doing the photography work for your school, the studio will arrange for the portrait CD to be processed and sent to you. If your photographer is not the same as your yearbook provider, request that you receive the portrait CD as quickly as possible.