No forced grimaces and hackneyed ideas for photos. Turning to RHINODESIGN, you will receive graduation albums with lively faces and interesting pictures. And leave photos with people lined up in stupid poses at the behest of the photographer. They need more.

How is the photo shoot going?

We do not dictate terms to you. How the photo session will take place is up to you. You want in a photo studio, you want within the walls of an educational institution, or you want in nature, in a park or anywhere else in Moscow, Moscow Region or St. Petersburg.

We will bring to life any ideas so that in the end your graduation album will become special. So that after many years you open it and remember all the people who are captured in these pictures. Re-experienced all the pleasant moments from your past.

For you, the photo session will take place according to a separate scenario. Plus, we take into account the peculiarities of work with each age. We have in the state professional photographers specializing in certain types filming:

• Photo shoots for kindergarten;
• Photo sessions for 4th grade;
• Photo sessions for grade 9;
• Photo sessions for grade 11;
• Photo sessions for graduates of institutes and universities.

How is photography going

As a rule, photography takes place in two stages:

• Studio photo session;
• Reportage photo session.

In the studio we shoot general photos of the group, the class. Then, in the place of your choice, we photograph the graduates individually and with their friends, beloved teachers, teachers, and educators.

Additionally, you can order shooting directly from the celebration. At the moment when children, boys and girls say goodbye to the next passed stage in their lives. Our photographers capture the most sincere emotions so that they stay with you forever.

We are responsible for quality. We do not delay delivery. We work under an official contract, which reflects all the responsibility of RHINODESIGN to customers.

How to prepare for your prom photo shoot

The main tip for anyone preparing for a prom shoot is to get enough sleep. Fresh faces are half the battle. Decide on a place for a photo shoot and think over your image in advance.

Think about whether all participants in the photo shoot will be dressed in the same style, or whether everyone wants to emphasize their individuality. It is also worth considering in advance the decor of the room in which the shooting will be carried out.

The rest is the work of our photographers. It doesn't matter if you are preparing for graduation from kindergarten, school or university. RHINODESIGN specialists have many years of experience in organizing photo shoots and creating chic albums.

How albums are made

You choose the design of your album yourself. We have over 100 ready-made options to choose from. It is possible to develop a completely unique design for you.

What photos will be included in your photo album, you also choose yourself. Thus, each graduate has absolutely

Standard vignettes, a group photo of the class - can they tell a lot about the life of students? School photography is primarily a live report, a photo essay about the time spent at school. This is the relationship of children among themselves, their victories and joys, and sometimes defeats and failures, their mischief at recess. Not all schools have open lessons for parents. Therefore, in addition to preserving memories, such a reportage photograph is also an opportunity for moms and dads to look into the world of their child's school life. Russian Photo club member Olga Kuzmina talks about the intricacies of school photography.

Olga, hello. You have been doing school photography for quite some time. Therefore, today we will ask you to act as an expert. Very often, for those who are just starting to master this genre, the question arises: the class is large, how to manage to take all the children? How to remember who was filmed and who was not?

- If this is a reportage shooting, then I take the time to shoot all the desks in a row. I can take a picture of one row, then shoot randomly, then another row, shoot randomly again, etc.

If this is a portrait shoot, then I will definitely ask for a class list and mark in it those who have already been photographed. Starting from the 4th grade, I try to look at the shots taken with each child and choose the one on which he likes himself. With high school students, I make sure to select photos. I write down the number of the selected picture.

The child obviously does not want to be photographed. What to do?

- The younger the children, the more they are liberated and the easier it is to shoot them. The closer to high school, the more they have complexes and dissatisfaction with themselves, hence often the reluctance to be photographed. Children can defiantly turn away from the camera, cover themselves with their hands during the reporting. The shooting is ordered by the parents, it was they who decided that the child needed a photo album. Teenagers, on the other hand, have their own opinion, and it is important to establish contact here. By showing a child a few successful shots on the monitor screen, it is often possible to eliminate his stiffness and unwillingness to be photographed. If he still does not want to get into the frame, then large focal lengths will allow him to be removed from the other end of the class. You can also focus on the child and then move the camera to adjacent desks. Literally 20-30 seconds - and those who do not want to be photographed are involved in the process of the lesson, and then you can take a picture with him. In general, school shooting can become a real photo hunt.

- Do you have to manage a lot, that is, create staged shots?

- During the lesson, the teacher leads, but I do not create situations, but only catch moments. I most often take staged shots if I manage to free up a lesson, part of a lesson, or at breaks for shooting. I like to come up with some interesting stories to diversify the report. On the street, you can invite children to jump in groups, in winter - to play snowballs, in May - to throw notebooks; Believe me, few will remain indifferent. You can fold paper airplanes in advance and launch them. Often there is a globe in the classroom, and you can offer to look for something on it: “Can you find Moscow? Where were you in the summer? Which country do you want to visit? Of course, each age category has its own stories. If contact with the teacher is established, then you can ask him to ask the guys simple questions, then you will be provided with a forest of hands. Often children, especially high school students, are happy to offer ideas for filming.

This year I made albums for the 9th grade, which I have been shooting for more than a year. Whether you like it or not, you had to come up with something new. The idea was born easily: the 9th grade is the GIA (now the OGE). The guys passed two general exams, Russian and mathematics, plus additional electives. Therefore, I painted the board in accordance with the core subjects: biology, chemistry, literature, German, English, social studies and physics.

— What shooting points, camera angles are used most often?

- Of course, at the level of the eyes of the child. But he sits at his desk, sometimes he also stoops, therefore, in order to “get” his eyes, I spend most of the shooting squatting between the rows. After that, despite training, my legs always hurt. If there are free chairs at the desks, you can sit on them and work comfortably for two or three minutes. Now in primary and high school often practiced work in groups of 4-6 people, and here the upper angles work well, then I stand on chairs, desks.

— How to shoot so as not to distract from the learning process?

- You can tell the children before the lesson that this is a report and the most the best photos- on which they do not pose, but simply go about their business, that is, they study. But at recess we can take pictures in groups, fool around and pose.

— How often do children pose? Are they embarrassed?

- If there is a lesson, then, as a rule, the guys stop paying attention to the photographer after five to seven minutes, but it happens differently. Some children begin to make faces, climb into the frame. It is enough for such a child to whisper so that he continues to do his job, or to point at the teacher / blackboard with a look. If this does not work, then without taking a picture, I move the lens to other children and shoot them. This is a good distraction, and the next time the child reacts to the camera calmly. It also happens the other way around: when a child sees a camera pointed at him, he sits down “as it should be”, the hand that he pulled almost to the ceiling, puts it on the desk “correctly”, gives his face serious look, and nothing remains of immediacy and liveliness. Again, either I quietly ask you not to pose, or I shoot such a “correct” child from the other end of the class when he does not see.

What do you like about school photography?

- I like what it is real life! Favorite shooting - 1st grade on September 1st! A variety of emotions in children: someone has joy and delight on the threshold of a new “adult” life, someone has experiences and fears. Happy and proud moms and dads, grandparents. Sea of ​​flowers. “First time in first grade” is an event and a holiday for the whole family of a first-grader. I am very glad that I help to preserve the memories of this holiday for many families. And I also loved mine. school years. Shooting at school allows you to return to that time (smiles).

What lenses do you prefer?

- Zoom lenses are best for shooting in a small room. My favorite is the Canon 24-70 f/2.8. small focal length allows you to shoot and general plans, and individual children, located literally half a meter away from them. The 70-200 f/2.8 lens lets you photograph guys close-up from the other end of the class, lately I’ve been shooting only at him. If the day is sunny, I can put on a fast "fifty kopeck" and shoot without a flash.

— How to use light and what to do if you have to shoot against a window?

- Since the light from the windows is often catastrophically small, I almost always use a flash aimed at the ceiling, and sometimes a second one, to illuminate the background. It can be placed on a windowsill or closet, also pointing at the ceiling. Against solar backlight, an on-camera flash saves.

- What pictures do parents most often want to see?

- The old rule works here: the more part of the photo is occupied by the child, the more his parents like it (smiles). And of course, dads and moms want to see emotions and interesting situations in the pictures.

— Do details matter?

- Textbooks scattered around desks, a cool corner, children's crafts are an integral part of the school process. I will definitely take them off.

Who is easier to work with: boys or girls?

- In reportage photography, it is absolutely the same. In portrait photography, it’s easier with girls in terms of the desire to act.

— What plots can be caught at recess, where children open up more?

- Change is an informal setting, which means new interesting stories. The guys run, chat with friends, play, write off homework. This needs to be removed! Unfortunately, it is quite dark in the corridors of schools, and the intensity of movement of children can be huge, high ISO values ​​​​save.

What role does the teacher play in school photography? How should the photographer interact with it?

- A teacher is a person who can help you a lot, so it's worth talking about him separately.

If you are psychologically comfortable during the shooting, then the shots will come out good. And in order to achieve comfort, initially it is necessary to win over the teacher, to establish contact with him.

Arrive a little earlier than the agreed time to have time to meet the teacher. Note how wonderfully the classroom is designed; what beautiful plants it has (any winter garden will envy many classrooms); how neat children look and how great it is for photography; what interesting wall newspapers; how much auxiliary materials and so on, so on, so on. All of the above is the result of the work of the teacher, and such indirect compliments are always appropriate. But, of course, it must be done sincerely. Find something that really delights you, and your praise will not leave anyone indifferent.

At the break, you can again approach the teacher. Involve him in the process, interest him. You can show some good shots from the footage. Ask how the next lesson will go and ask to include some points that are interesting for shooting: group work (this is now practiced in many schools), a call to the board (if this was not) and so on. And again, do not forget about compliments: how well the guys worked in the lesson; what was difficult material and how simply and skillfully it was presented; what kind of discipline or, conversely, an easy and trusting environment... In the end, the mere fact that a teacher manages to cope with 25-30 children, each of whom "has two hundred grams of explosives or even half a kilo", deserves sincere admiration! Don't be afraid to talk about it!

Thanks a lot for the helpful tips! Good luck to you!

Of course, a school photo album, general photos of a class or group, as well as single photos of students are an important part of the life stage of every person. It is by looking at these photographs that many years later people remember their classmates, how they went life path. just the same person who creates these most beautiful works.

We have been photographing schoolchildren, students, shooting in kindergartens, creating school photo albums, group photos, vignettes and graduation photo albums for over 15 years. Behind us is a huge number of beautiful images created by us and magnificent photo books stored on the shelves of our clients. The main types of work that our photographers create and prices are presented below.

Stock

TOTAL LEFT BEFORE THE PRICE INCREASE BY 30%:

FIND OUT THE COST OF A SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHER RIGHT NOW!!!

Our prices

School, graduation photo albums and photo albums for kindergarten:

Single photos and collages with single photos:

Group photos:

School brochure ("folder"):

Our work

The modern school album is fundamentally different from those albums that we saw in the 80s and 90s of the last century. This is a chic printing, the author's unique design, creativity and professional photography.

Photos for the album are usually shot in the studio. If this is not possible, our school photographer Moscow come to you to shoot a class or group on the spot (at a school or college). For each album, a unique design is selected, which is carefully agreed with the customer.

Shooting can also be carried out either with a visit to a professional, specially equipped studio, or on the spot, in your kindergarten. All necessary equipment available from our photographers. We take both individual photos of each and group photos of children. All these photos are included in the photo album, which is being prepared for printing in the printing industry and then delivered to you.

Graduation photo album is an integral part of the last year of study, closely connected with the warmest memories of the first Alma Mater of each person. We try to take not just protocol photos of the whole class, but approach the creation of an album creatively, filling it with staged photos of students, group photos, photos of teachers and the school itself, and reportage shots, for example, from preparation for graduation party covering the leisure of schoolchildren, their hobbies, hobbies.

Our school photographer Moscow a real master of creating lively, bright, memorable photos!

Studio photoshoot

In order to create truly amazing photographs, the best place is a specialized photo studio. As a rule, for such filming, a centralized trip to the studio is carried out and shooting is carried out there. The studio allows you to use better lighting, change clothes, invite a make-up artist for shooting and, of course, provides a rich choice of interiors, various backgrounds and accessories.

single photos

For such a survey, our school photographer Moscow travels to your school and shoots on the spot. A series of single photographs is created against a background. Photos are printed either singly in the formats you choose, or a collage is created, as in the examples presented.

The classic school vignette will never get old. We have a huge database of background substrates, the choice of which is always agreed with the customer. Photographs are classically taken on a plain background, after which they are placed on a vignette, printed in the required circulation and given to the customer.

group photos

Group photos are also the De Facto standard in school photography that has been around for many years. Children, along with teachers, are placed together in one group, after which photographs are taken. Such pictures can be collaged with others or printed as is without borders.

Graduation photos ("folder")

One of the most popular types of school photographs is photographs made in the form of a brochure or as it is also called folders. This is a double-sided booklet on thick paper. 4 pages, where photos are artistically assembled by the designer. As a rule, this is a group photo of a class or a vignette, a single photo of a child and an informal photo with friends, but it is possible to make any individual design according to your desire.

Our main advantages:

• Adequate prices, price packages that satisfy any budget and hourly pay!
• The term for preparing photos is 3-4 days;
• Discounts for regular customers. Special discount programs for our clients;
• Delivery of ready-made photo materials - FREE OF CHARGE;
• Only professional TOP equipment;

ORDER A SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHER RIGHT NOW!!!

Our equipment

We work only with professional equipment (cameras Canon EOS 1Ds, EOS 5D Mark III, TOP-series L lenses).

Photo processing also takes place according to special author's algorithms on calibrated designer monitors. High-quality equipment and a professional approach to shooting also affect the final cost of the service. «school photographer Moscow», but on the other hand, they allow us to provide customers with a truly professional quality result.

At first glance, everyday portrait photography is the simplest photographic job. But this is only at first glance. I had a chance to shoot at schools and kindergartens for several years. A beginner with a good theoretical background and practice, say, reportage shooting, may take more than one month to establish a more or less correct technological cycle. Only after that, the number of photos not redeemed by parents will be set at about six percent.

It will take about two years to win back your own piece of space in the world of children's institutions, where you can sustainably earn your daily bread and at the same time hope that the director of "your school" will not give himself to another, more successful, more skilled or more generous photographer.

Work does not begin with shooting, but with finding a job. The photographer has to comb through residential areas, getting refusal after refusal, until he persuades some director of the children's institution to let him go to the "trough" - and then you have to be in full combat readiness.
Manufacturing process requires careful organization. The fact is that you can spend only one lesson on a photo shoot of one class. And not every teacher agrees to disrupt his lesson. The photo shooting schedule is usually drawn up for more than one day, and if something suddenly breaks in the mechanism in the course of work, it is not easy to return the process to the established course. That is why the observance of the rhythm is one of the most important components of the technology of work at school. There are twenty-five to forty-five students in a class. The lesson lasts forty-five minutes. Therefore, the photographer has only one minute for each portrait. Sometimes more than four hundred people have to be photographed in a day.
Portable studio in a miniature version consists of two studio flashes with leading halogen lamps, two photo umbrellas, a reflector screen (light disk), a background and five support stands.
The studio is usually installed right in the school corridor. A fabric background is hung on racks near the wall. A chair with a low back is attached to the floor in any way possible for you.
If this is not done, then exactly half of the time allotted for shooting the class will be spent on a senseless struggle with the desire of each child to find a new, better chair for the chair. appropriate place.
And in no case should this be allowed, since this will change the distance from the chair to the background and from the source of the key light to the student's face.
The minimum flash output is 150 joules. Well, if there is the possibility of dividing the power in half. The flash should be ready to fire almost immediately after firing. The ten seconds it takes to charge some flashes is too long. The change house does not tolerate such pauses.
A stand with a flash and a photo umbrella, which should provide key light, must be installed once and for all at a certain distance from the head of the person being portrayed. To do this, you can start a measuring tape, and draw a sector of a circle on the floor with chalk. If necessary, along this line it will be possible to move the flash stand during operation, without wasting precious seconds on repeated exposure measurements. I put the key light on my left. The counter also needs to be kept in a strictly defined place. In this scheme, he not only highlights the hair and shoulders, but also the background. That is why it makes sense for him to adapt a small photo umbrella.
It is very important to keep the once calculated positions of the flashes, the chair and the background unchanged. It is known that the illumination of an object decreases in inverse proportion to the square of the distance to the light source. It is enough to move the flash away from the child’s face by thirty centimeters or lean forward, and the distance from the light source to the person being portrayed will change by thirty percent. In practice, this will lead to a very noticeable difference in the densities of neighboring frames. No printer will bother with each frame separately. At good photographer all files are the same in density and contrast. The bad one has everything mixed up, both underexposed and overexposed. Operators are forced to fiddle with the correction of each portrait, losing time. Good printers-operators do not work with bad photographers. For the right to work with them, the photographer must fight, compete.
Through trial and error, I came to the conclusion that it is best to use an aluminized photo umbrella in school (white cloth scatters light too much and devours a lot of energy, while the aperture drops to 5.6). An aluminized umbrella with a diameter of 100 cm reflects a lot of light and gives a distinct black and white pattern with soft transitions from light to shadow. A flash turned on at a power of 150 joules at a distance from the umbrella to the child's eyes of 130 cm gives aperture 8 (film-matrix sensitivity 100 ASA). To move such an umbrella more than thirty meters from the eyes of the person being portrayed is bad. At the same time, it ceases to give a soft light and shade pattern, and it is not worth using an umbrella of a larger diameter, since it takes up too much space, blocking off half of the recreational corridor. Children at recess break loose, rush like meteors, now and then knocking down the fence of chairs built around the studio. It costs them nothing to fill up any of the flashes on the floor. Therefore, at breaks, shooting stops, the photographer retrains as a security guard.
Ideally, the key light should be placed so that it does not have to be moved too often during the shooting. The height of the middle of the umbrella should be about 20 cm above the head of the person being portrayed, and the angle should be 45 degrees to the axis of the lens. Naturally, the flash will have to be raised when shooting graduates and lowered when shooting first-graders.
The light reflector (light disc) should be placed to the right of the photographer, 40 cm from the child's shoulder. You should not push it further - there will be gaps in the shadows. The exposure difference in highlights and shadows on the face should ideally be 0.7 f-stops.
The light must be set so that the aperture is clamped to 8. At the same time, the depth of field of the portrait lens becomes optimal: the eyes are sharp, and the ears are floating. Opening a hole is even more bad, because there is no margin of depth of field, and in the event of the slightest mistake, you can get a marriage. Given the pace of shooting, it's best not to risk it.
The lens should allow you to shoot a half-length portrait from an arm's length. This is important, because now and then children have to straighten shirt collars, ties, and bangs. Portrait lenses are distinguished by their soft pattern, shallow depth of field, and usually large aperture. The latter is very important: if the lens is dark, the eye will not last long. Focus on the eyes four hundred times a day, and so on for several days in a row ... It won’t seem enough. When shooting a class, turn off autofocus and frame the frame so that the head of the person being portrayed occupies three-quarters of the frame, there is not too much of the body, and there is a small space of a blurry background above the head. Now focus on the child's eyes and seal the focusing ring with tape. The main thing is that the scale of the image of the heads does not change in the process of work. When they all come together on one cool vignette, heads of different sizes will look ugly. You will have to focus by changing the position of your own head: either approaching the client’s eyes, or moving away from them. Not very convenient, but the product is guaranteed standard at the output. Another important little thing. At the moment of shooting, the camera mirror is raised, and you lose sight of the person for a brief moment. And it is at this moment that he strives to blink. If after shooting you find two or three “blinkers” in each class, you can assume that you will no longer work in this school or kindergarten. There is only one way to avoid this during the shooting: you need to look with one eye into the lens, and with the other - directly at the child and in double if necessary. To insure against mistakes, now and then looking at the digital display, is not an option - the pace of work gets lost.
I photographed the kids sitting on a chair. This saved energy, since the height of the lens during the shooting turned out to be optimal: just above the level of the child's eyes. The chair was turned in the direction of the drawing light so that the child, sitting down, directed his knees directly to the umbrella, and turned his head towards me. The pose turned out a little more dynamic than when shooting for a passport.
On the eve of shooting, children usually receive a lot of “useful” advice from their parents.
A trained child, sitting on a chair in front of the photographer, inflates like a bubble, begins to straighten her hair, collar, chew her own lips, or gives out such a wry smile that it is just right to burst out laughing. A lot in this case depends on the behavior of the photographer. You can't let a child recover. As soon as you sit him down and straighten his hair and clothes yourself, immediately ask him some stupid question that has nothing to do with shooting, but requires a switch of attention. For example: “How much will kvazhda kva?”, “What is your cat’s name?”, “Turn your nose a little to the left?” etc.
You should have quite a lot of such blanks in stock so that for each next child the question is unexpected. Children usually stand in line near the studio and watch everything that happens as little performance, in which the photographer is both a director and an actor at the same time. And because of whether the children are interested in the performance, their behavior during the shooting depends. The moment a child hears a question, he willy-nilly shifts his attention from wanting to be beautiful and controlling facial muscles to thinking about an unexpected question. His physiognomy at this time acquires a natural expression. This is the moment of truth, catch it, press the trigger. After a moment, the child will think about the question and respond: he will begin to speak, smile and begin to play “handsome” again.
If you failed to catch this beautiful moment, it does not matter - try again. You should not shoot talking children, squeeze smiles out of them if they themselves do not smile at you with full confidence. Uneven teeth or all sorts of glands in the mouth are very ugly. It's better for these guys not to open their mouths at all. Pictures of calm, smart kids are well bought up by parents. Any extremes in the manifestation of emotions are fraught with an increased percentage of the return of images.
Children should not be allowed to stand directly behind you. They begin to make faces, show horns, in a word, entertain the one who is already filming. This knocks down the rhythm of shooting, interferes with the creation of the optimal mood of the whole class. Confidence, goodwill, calmness, mild tolerance for children's pranks and at the same time firmness in organizational requirements- absolutely essential. If you can get the teacher to tidy up her tomboys, and you don't waste time combing recalcitrant tufts and arranging collars and ties, you will be able to rent an entire class in forty-five minutes and still not "produce" marriage.
Senior classes are more difficult to shoot. The girls are all fashion models. They may sit in a chair with their back to the light because that side of their face seems better to them. Asking to move is useless. It is necessary to prepare in advance for the rearrangement of the light from left to right and mark with an indelible felt-tip pen on the floor the place of installation of the stand with an umbrella. Large guys will have to shoot while standing. Conversations with them and distractions should be more sophisticated and humorous. Commands in an orderly tone do not pass. In a confrontational environment, filming goes badly. For many guys, teenage pimples are potential "returners". They are removed, but do not redeem their portraits. Therefore, stock up on good covering powder and masking pencils. Under the friendly laughter of the guys, they will have to paint their cheeks and foreheads at a fast pace, not listening to objections.
The result is quite decent portraits without pimples and freckles. The alternative is computer retouching.
A special case is the shooting of teachers. They are sometimes not young, but they want to look their best. Prepare a soft filter or black stocking. Do not shoot teachers' faces close. The scale of their heads is better to reduce in comparison with the childish ones. Move the umbrella a little closer to the machine. The light will become flatter, but there will also be less shadows on the faces. Wrinkles and other skin imperfections will be less visible. How much the teacher likes his own portrait depends on how the pictures will be sold.
You should not go to classes yourself and collect money for photographs. It is better to agree with a specific person at school and hand over the entire shooting to him straightaway. Twenty percent of the money raised will go to pay for the consent of the director to work with you. Another item of expenditure is free photographs for caregivers, teachers and their children or grandchildren. Sometimes these children attend the same school, sometimes toddlers are brought from home. It breaks the rhythm of shooting. Therefore, it is better to shoot such clients after lessons or in a pause between the first and second shifts.
The most amazing thing is that the experience of working in a school smoothly, without much effort, adapts to the shooting of armchair portraits of large leaders. It turned out that technically it is exactly the same job. The equipment does not need to be changed. You just need to take into account the physiological characteristics of people. If the client is very bald, you should not shine a light on his head, you can use the ceiling as a huge softbox. A tripod with an umbrella often has to be placed directly on the client's workbench. Although time is limited - big people have big worries, but you can still play with the light. Psychologically, it is much easier to work with adults - they themselves are interested in the result of shooting and, unlike children, they know how to control their emotions.
Cherish your customers. Try to meet them halfway, and then they will not cheat on you with other photographers.

Farewell film, farewell!
Four years ago, right after the very first shooting with a five-megapixel digital camera, I said these words. But a few more times I don’t want to take the trouble-free Nikon F-5 for reportage shooting. I didn't have a perfect replacement for it. Now she is. Portraits of a schoolboy for an article about shooting a change house were taken by Nikon D2X, a portrait of Viktor Vekselberg - Nikon F-5 on a Fujichrome Astia 100 ACA slide. This is a very good fine-grain professional film. Both in the first and in the second case, the camera was equipped with a Nikkor 80-200 / 2.8 zoom, aperture 8. In the process of preparing the files for printing, I looked at both pictures at 200 percent magnification. And again he said to himself: - Farewell, film! - and added - goodbye forever!

P.S. A few words about the profitability of change houses:
The cost of the camera and mini-studio is approximately $2,500. A good everyday photographer in Moscow earns more than a thousand dollars a month. At the same time, the profitability of his work is approximately fifty percent, that is, of the collected money, he keeps about half for himself. Today, schools demand shooting only the graduating classes and the third (it is also like a graduation). Parental love for children sharply decreases after the child reaches school age.

If you have been working as a children's photographer for a long time, then you will find an increase in orders for school photography, because children grow up, and parents prefer to work with a proven specialist.

On the one hand, this is good, because you do not need to spend money on advertising, and you can earn even more from school shootings than in kindergarten - classes are now quite numerous. But at school, the photographer faces a number of serious problems which never occur when shooting preschoolers.
First, at school, you most likely will not be allowed to interfere with the learning process and distract children.
Secondly, lighting a classroom is more difficult than small play areas in a kindergarten.
Thirdly, the older children get, the more difficult it is to get them interested in the shooting process. High school students may defiantly turn away from the camera, interfere with photography, or outright refuse to participate in it.
But, perhaps, the main problem of shooting is the monotony of the school learning process. Almost all the time, children are at their desks, engaged in the same type of activity.

Physical education lessons are also unpredictable. In large halls, several classes can study at the same time, difficult lighting conditions, the complete dependence of the result on the mood and plans of the physical education teacher, as well as the children themselves in adolescence become angular, control their bodies worse and photos in motion are not always as aesthetic, like photographing preschoolers.

Another big disadvantage is that at certain ages, due to the restructuring of the body, children's faces require such an amount of retouching that is comparable only to wedding shooting, respectively, the profitability will be very low, since a lot of money will be spent on paying for the work of a retoucher.

Let's start solving these problems one by one.

First, you need to decide on your preferred ages and try to shoot them.

For example, for us, it is preferable to shoot 1-2 classes, which are ordered very rarely. In order to receive such orders, actively announce that you are filming schoolchildren on September 1st. For such key queries, parents will definitely search for you and there will be many requests.
It is clear that on this day you will already be busy, but during telephone conversations you can convince parents that shooting on September 1 is a waste of money, but shooting one day at school is a very interesting and valuable story about how a child is already began to study at school, as he explores new territory, found new friends.
It is better to organize such shootings at the end of September - the beginning of October, when the children have already had time to fully adapt to school, have time to make friends, and most importantly, that the leading activity for children at this age is education, which is why they react so vividly and emotionally in the lessons, they are interested and like to study.

Parents who ordered you to shoot first graders will definitely contact you at the end of the 4th grade to take a photo shoot for graduation albums in primary school. Tell them ahead of time that these types of shots are best done at the beginning of 4th grade - as long as there is good light and interesting backgrounds for shooting children outside. At the end of the year, as a rule, children are already tired, they have a lot of control works, and all good children's photographers in this period are overloaded with orders. The next stream of calls to you will be in the senior graduating classes.
I personally refuse requests from parents and advise that the issue of photography and choosing a photographer be discussed by the children themselves. Although the 11th grade is already difficult to call children :) For three years now, high school students have been calling me, who themselves coordinate the time of photo shoots, collect money, choose photos for photo books, make illustrations for their design and even assist on the set.
Here is an example of spreads from a school book that I made 3 years ago. The school on the cover is a drawing by one of the students in this class.
Since the shooting was not carried out in Moscow and the territorial factor, which is so significant for the capital, was absent (large distances), we decided to shoot in several passes, literally one hour each.

Now a little about lighting.

In classrooms, ideally, it is better to shoot without overhead light and additionally illuminate with flashes. This is another reason to organize shooting in the fall or spring. Unfortunately, lamps that give a terrible yellow-green tint are quite common in schools.
A good solution is to highlight some kind of filming area(it is possible to ask for a separate office, in the back desks or even in the corridor), highlight it and shoot in a conveyor mode, dividing the children into groups according to the principle - who is friends with whom. It is good to place standard study guides(books, maps, globes, you can also look for more sophisticated equipment such as microscopes and skeletons).
The essence of the conveyor approach is that by taking children in groups, in a short period of time, you can shoot several diverse scenes at once - both individual portraits and portraits in activity, group interactions that can be activated by competitive moments. For example, who will be the first to find Africa on the globe?

Such photos will dilute the monotonous school report and are a very good reason for creating combined photo books.
School, unlike kindergarten, is a place where strong friendships are formed, sometimes for life. Children and parents want to see in the books not only their children, but also their friends, and the life of the class, general photographs, some kind of photo story about the school as a whole. They end up wanting a big book for little money.

The ideal solution is to create a combined book, where 3 spreads will be individual, and the rest will be the same for the whole class (that is, the work on book layout is minimized, which means that these books are much cheaper than completely personal books for 10 spreads). At the same time, the individual beginning of the photo book (3 personal spreads) makes this book unique and inimitable, plus the effect of the first impression - when viewing the book, parents first see their child, and then supplement this impression with a general picture.