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glort Offline [X]
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Did a small T&I shoot yesterday with a few changes.
For as long as I can remember, I have done a team shot, given the card to the desk Jockey who downloaded it to the computer, printed a pic which we wrote numbers on each player and then got the coach manager to either write the names out or where provided, Number a team list.
Yesterday we took an Ipad, shot the team ID pic on that, wrote numbers on the kids with an app as well as the team name and then got the coach to ID the players from that.
Worked awesome. Saved taking a laptop and printer and was fast.
For lighting, instead of studio heads I took my Godox 360 and 180's.
I was a bit concerned about battery life but after the 500 pics done, they were both still showing full charge. I was able to shoot as quick as I liked and had more than enough power.
We had an efpos machine which runs 8+ hours on battery and with everything else being battery powered, we eliminated the need for cords or a generator, cord cover's ( anti trip) laptop and printer and numerous other gear.
last year we pretty much filled the back of the car with everything, this year my wife comfortably carried all we needed and more.
Probably behind the times with this compared to what others do but it was a test and a successful one for us. This was only a small club and we only shot aaround 100 kinds but I'm pretty sure we could do 4-500 kids no problem.
One thing that I thought a sign of the times and was interesting.....
A number of kids were shy/ scared of the big ugly bastard with the big camera and cried or didn't want to be photographed. My daughter picked up on the problem and made me put the camera down and walk away. After all cajoling the 5 yo failed, including fathers promise to buy him a Ferrari for his 18th birthday, my daughter got the ipad and said she was going to take his picture.
The kid responded immeadiately and once he saw it out the corner of his eye he relaxed, smiled and seemed happy. She then got the camera and shot and that then seemed OK.
This happened a couple more times where the child didn't want to be photographed but the production of an ipad instead of a camera seemed to be something they better related to and were more cooperative with and won their trust.
Sign of the times we live in I suppose.
Over all we had an ipad running off battery power of course, a portable efpos machine, Lithium powered flashes and camera's. My daughter also took her portable speaker and had that playing for atmosphere as well.
When I started doing T&I all this would have been beyond fantasy but now here we are.
One contrast that was noticable, we had NO takers on Digital images. Everyone still wanted a print package despite us pushing the digital delivery or USB's.
One other observation was in the marketing. Last year someone made the brilliant suggestion of putting descriptions on the price sheet. I normally use envelopes but this year I went 50/50 with an A4 printed packages list on one side and the order list on the other as well as the envelopes for cash.
I put what I thought was the brilliant idea of "Most popular" and "Best value" on the upper 2 packages. It didn't seem to work. our base package was still 66% of over all sales. I was hoping to sell the majority the next package up but didn't happen. I'm wondering if this is a reflection of the parents not being excited by the offerings or the majority do it because they have to type of thing or something else? Judging but the number of parents trying to take their own pics on phones, seem like they still want these shots.
Next year I'll raise the standards to more like what I see here. If they aren't happy with that then it will be time to forget this market and find another!
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Aug 06, 2017 at 08:26 AM |
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