Firstly, I would like to thank Rory from playgroupphotos.com.au for sharing his innovative thinking with me and ultimately you.
Due to Covid, business's all around the globe have had to innovate and change the way they operate. Pre school photos are no exception.
'Playgroup Photos' have offered a photography solution to their pre school clients, marketing it as - 'Preschool in the Park' - It was initially offered up as a solution to the childcare Centre's they service and had not been allowed any visitors/contractors past the front door.
''We had been approached by several Centre managers of these kinder's and we decided to offer a public park photoshoot to be advertised by the centre to their families.''
The concept is to have a mini photo sessions 'In the park' of the preschoolers as well as siblings and parents.
It had been considered only a short-term solution as Playgroup Photos were pushing bookings further and further back and rescheduling centres around COVID restrictions, however once term 3 concluded it had become apparent that the government were not changing their stance on pre school photography.
Using a scheduling /booking software - Acuity Scheduling, bookings are made in 10-minute increments for selected weekend days allocated to each centre interested . These are then secured with a non-refundable $20 booking fee which is credited to each participant's account upon completion of the photoshoot and uploading of images to the Netlife platform
''We knew we had a good reputation with many families in each childcare Centre we had worked with previously and that many of them would be disappointed not having kinder photos this year and this was an opportunity to secure photographic work for our photographers as well as ourselves. By offering families the opportunity to bring in older siblings (or younger) for whom they might not have been able to get together for a sibling photo under normal circumstances we were able to promote a product that was in many ways seen to be better than normal Kindy photos
We select a park or public space nearby to each childcare centre that offers plenty of shade and where possible we can get the children to climb on or interact with interesting equipment or objects much as we would have them do in the playground of their centre. We run 2-3 photographers per shoot which allows an overlap and also lends support in coordinating each family as they arrive (and keeps them out of the way). Each photographer works with a family moving through the environment in a pre-determined pattern which each photographer follows. To remain within COVID Safe practices & guidelines we limit the number of people allowed along to the shoot in line with social distancing, we use the parents as assistants to position the kids (which keeps their phones away) and we specify this is not a family portrait shoot.
Once again, thank you so much to Rory from Playgroup Photos in Australia for allowing me to share this with everybody.
Good luck and please feel free to drop me a line with your success stories so that we can help more photo companies.