SCHOOL PHOTOS

JANE ELLIS LBIPP

Beverley Thornton (former Head) at Naseby Primary School called me a “miracle worker” since she saw her staff photo.

That is what I love about this role, cheering people up with great photos and building their self-esteem. At another school, when I asked a parent if I could have her permission to use her son’s school photo to promote my schools photography, she was over the moon. Little did I know how much it would mean to her son, who had been having a particularly difficult couple of days with some of the boys at school. He said that it had made his day that I had chosen his school photo. He felt so proud and it gave him a much-needed boost of selfconfidence.

To me every individual is special and deserves a photo that shows that. Children should not be treated like a “sausage in a sausage factory”. My school photos are about individuality. My service isn’t about how fast I can whizz through the school, it’s about the buzz of excitement, the personal connection and the delight on everyone’s faces when they see themselves as the star of a professional portrait that shows them how others see them when they are at their natural best.

It is still a battle to get into new schools. I have a lot of eager parents but some schools are reluctant to change from what they already know.

However, I find that if I can get through the door to show them my work, my products and my level of personal commitment, I will more often than not get the booking. Once I’m in, the schools don’t look back. I think that lockdown has opened up the market for independent schools photographers. Social distancing made schools more open to the idea of outdoor portraits and have found them to be a popular alternative to studio shots. Many national companies just couldn’t deliver these types of photos as they did not have the appropriately trained photographers to work in natural light and could not edit the photos on the mass scale that they work at. Word of mouth has power and I expect to see more schools using local photography firms in future.