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Segment 9 - Senior Portrait Experience: Plan the Shoot

Now, I know we're gonna really get into this when we shoot live in the morning. But I just wanted to touch on this because it is part of the process. It's part of that experience. So you've done a great job of getting to know your client. You've given them all the information they need to make an educated decision to book you on. Now it's time for the shoot. So you really need Teoh. Give them the chance to plan that shoot according to them, and continue thinking of that experience. Maybe you bring water to the shoot, maybe bring a little cooler with water, maybe bring music like to my does. Maybe you bring fashion tape, which keeps things in place. But that's a little touch of something. Maybe you give them a little goody like some lip gloss because maybe they booked the sheikh session so the hair makeup artist doesn't come in with us. So maybe you give them ah, look loss so they can reapply during the shoot. You know, whatever you can do to add something a little bit different to thei...

r session and their photo shoot is really how you're going to continue that experience. Take care of them during the sheep, make them feel good. You know, I keep going back to that that make them feel good the whole time and take care of them. So, like I say, take some bottle will get you some bottled water, put you a label on it that says you're your photography name. And And take that, maybe take a little snack. You know, maybe take them a T shirt or a sticker or, you know, some little something that has your logo on it that you can give them after the shoot is over. But just continue to remember that experience throughout the photo shoot these air behind the scenes shots of the concept Shoot that. We're gonna be showing a day a day, three concept. She's day three s. So we're going to showing you the actual results of this. But my friend Jenny came and helped me on the shoot, so she captured those two images of me working with the girls again. I'm laughing with them here, so that's, you know, helping improve their experience. I was pretending like I knew what I was doing. Like doing this crazy model pose. They thought it was a serious on, then showing in the back of the camera. I know one of you guys mentioned that earlier throughout the shoot, showing them that back of that camera is going to add to their experience because they're going to know throughout the shoot that there, they're doing a good job and that you're capturing something amazing. So not feeling self conscious or any of those type things. They're not feeling awkward to go back to that. You know, that moment when all the girls that I, you know, ask questions they didn't want to feel awkward, So that helps because they can see it. They can see that they're not awkward, that you're you're making them look beautiful, which is what they want to dio um so OK, so planning to shoot playing the shoot, according to the questionnaire, I know have touched on this a little bit. When I was going over the questions that I asked him why I asked them. But this is where you put that to use. You take their answers and you really go into the why. You know what they answered and how you can incorporate that into their shoot. You know, like I say, they mentioned they love theme the field, and they really want that. And that's what you know that. OK, I've got to do a field for this girl, Okay, If they mentioned their favorite coffee shop or ice cream shop or something like that, maybe you can call that ice cream shop for that coffee shop and say, Hey, do you mind if we come take some photos here and you can build an entire session based off of that? So that's important to pick locations based on the answers match locations to their outfits. You know, again, I mentioned this earlier. If their country, you want to make sure they aren't in a, you know, crazy urban locations just not gonna match, not gonna fit their personality. Right? So use that questionnaire to tell you those things. Remember their style when you're posing them when you're when you're interacting with them, you know, maybe there's somebody that is not super glamorous. So maybe the pose that is way half fashion is maybe not supposed for them to remember that because you don't want them to feel awkward. So you want to give them the right experience and give them one that's specific to them. So you wanna play off their strengths and their comfortable level, all that good stuff, and then always, always, always continue that experience. Any little thing you can do to make them remember that the time they had on their To me, that's even more important than the photos. You know, nothing like. I think maybe there's, I think. I hope I don't get any backlash for this. But I think that a person that's not a photographer might love a photo that's not technically correct because you gave them an experience that is so amazing. That's what they remember when they're looking at that photo, they're not going. Oh, well, she blew out the sky. This sucks. I mean, they're not looking at that there going Oh, my God. I remember when I was standing there and I remember how fun that was to do, and I remember this. So I feel like that's almost even Mawr important and will make you stand out than your photos, because again, there's a ton of people that can take good photos or even okay, photos. So What are you going to do to amp that up? And you're going to give them a memory and experience that they can say, Oh, that was so much fun. Then they're gonna talk about you to their friends. That's given them a reason to talk about you to their friends. If they just got photos and they didn't have a good time, photos were fine. You know, whatever that may be. Even great. But they didn't have some great experience. I promise you, they won't recommend you to their friends. So keep that in mind. No matter what you're doing through the shoot through the calm communication with your student with your students. I'm looking at you with your seniors. You know, all that gets staff. Okay, So do we have any questions so far? Because so a question that came up earlier from Stephanie Johnson was with regard to the issue. Welcome guide. Did you create your own guide, or are there any templates that sure there are templates? I'm pretty sure there are template. I made my own, I don't know, off the top of my head any because that embody any. But I'm sure there are I mean, I could even put mine out there. Somebody wants it. That's totally fine. Yeah, I created it. I, you know, decided how many pages I wanted. Decided what I wanted. A plugged in my photos. It's not hard to create one. It is time consuming. So a template would be great if there are some out there. I think that's a great way to go. But I did. I did create mild cool. Yeah. How about you guys who had one designer glow? Yeah. Yeah. And I used there a lot of their wording and really totally redid it this year. But I love doing templates and stuff myself on, I think. Oh, snap. Yeah, I think they do too. Yeah, you're right. Oh, snap. Great. Stop. Yeah, they really do have some stuff, so yeah, look into that. 00 snap boutique dot com. Right, I All right. Let's get some mawr questions going. This was from after dark earlier in the segment. Once you send that information email back to the first step of this experience, if you hear nothing back at all from somebody, do you go ahead and do you go ahead and contact them Or do you just let it go without knowing why? Or how does that fellow up? And you know, you may get an answer, and you may not get an answer, but I follow up. In fact, just this week I had a mom contact me. I went through those, you know, the steps. Never heard. So I emailed him like, Hey, you know, do you have any further questions? Are you still deciding? You know, can I help you with anything? So she mailed me back a question. So I think she had been trying to, you know, think about this, but didn't know the answer. Whatever. So then she emailed me back and I answered a question, and then I didn't hear anything. So I emailed her again because at this point, I was starting to get somebody that wanted that date that I had already told this person that was available. And so I emailed her and I said, Hey, no rush. But I just want I just want to follow up with you. I do have somebody else interested in that date. So if you're not interested, if you could just let me know or if you're still deciding, let me know that on DSHEA she actually came back and said that they weren't prepared to spend the money, and that's fine. But I found out I got to the source of it, and I then offered the date up to the next person. So, yeah, definitely follow up again. You can only control so much so, you know, follow up. Don't be annoying. Maybe follow one or two times they don't. They don't even value back then, at that point, I would say, Yeah, you're probably not getting booked and used Move on. But if you can try to find out, I definitely do Great. Great. Any questions in here? All right, let's say we've got a lot of questions that have been coming in about wardrobe and styling. And what do you do with the style closet? When the couple are not all a size two and questions everybody, that is what we're gonna be talking about in our next segment. So hold tight on all of those questions. This is an interesting one from Heather Townsend, who asks, How do you deal with overbearing moms that make the session more about what they want rather than the near themselves. Rather that happened. That definitely happens for sure. And you know, you've got to be the professional. And you got to tell the mom, you know, sometimes the moms on the shoot with us and she is being overbearing, and she's like, Oh, her arm looks done there. Whatever they might say, Well, then you gotta kindly say to the mom, You know what? We're gonna step over here. I'm going to take her away and do some things without having you, you know, look at or whatever might make her feel constant subconscious. You know, they don't necessarily love an audience or whatever. So I'm going to do that. We'll be right back. Give them on something to do, have a hold. The reflector, You know, anything you can do to distract her is always a good thing. You know, sometimes I get Mom's that come, but then they sit in the car, and that's fine. But they are being overbearing. At some point, you are going to have to say something because the senior will only remember that their mom told her that you know her arm looked bad or whatever you know, and I'm sure their moms out there that say stuff like that awful. But I'm sure it happens. So at that point, I would step in and protect my senior on just in the nicest way possible, because, of course, you don't want to open the mother at at all. But, you know Oh, gosh, she looks thirsty. Do you mind running down to the Spinks and, you know, grabbing her water or whatever. Send them on a print, do something, you know, just so that the forcing your doesn't have toe could they get stressed, you know? Yeah. And then sometimes when you're educating the clients, they will ask, Do parents come? And I'll say, Well, you know, a lot of times the seniors feel more comfortable without an audience, but absolutely, you're welcome to come. I get it. It's your daughter. You might not feel comfortable with her with a stranger. A lot of times, though, I've done enough getting to know people in emails and did our It came from word of mouth or this that the other that they feel comfortable enough to let their daughter come. But I definitely have some that don't That's fine. So you just let him know that? Hey, you know, I love for you to come on and they put you to work. I may have you hold the reflector, or it may just, you know, you can always just wait in the car and let us do our thing Could Sometimes the girls feel more comfortable without Mom looking on. Just answer it that way. You're giving me flashbacks. I love my mom. Hi, mom. But, you know, high school is a with your relationship with your mom. Another one I've heard is behind the scenes photos. Have the mom give totally and say, catching work. That's where they get off in there like this. What the girls looking like exactly. I don't want to do too much mom bashing here, right? But we did have another question from W m lead in studios. Who said I just took an order from a senior session client and the mom would not order anything for herself or allow the daughter Teoh to order anything that she liked. Have you ever had this situation in any recommendation? Got on how to handle that bomb just controlled the ordering session. the whole time. Mom would not let her daughter order anything for her. So self sure if it's just again because there were images that she didn't like. Like you just talked about, right? Well, I will say that I definitely, uh, moms usually pick out something different than than the scene. Yes, but most of my clients will let the senior pick out one or two, and she'll pick out one or two. You know, a lot of times they're buying from Digitals said the senior will pick out the digital because they're the ones that won't that more than anything else, Mom will pick up the wall print that you don't hang in her own house that she wants the one she likes. So there is some difference in which ones girls picking, which ones? Mom's pic in general. It's a smile that the mom will pick and it's amore, you know. Not so smiley, smiling type, but fashionable, right? Totally. Right now I'm re reading the question, and that was It was she would only order the ones that the mom would only order the ones that she liked right, and not the ones that the A girl like Well, I encourage them in the ordering session. Would you'll see? I encourage them to look at the photos together to both star the things that they both like. And then you can go through the ones they starred. And a lot of times that that will be OK. Well, you liked, you know, 10. And I liked however many. And maybe we can get all these. Or maybe we have cut some of yours down so I could get something. You can get some. So if you can try to encourage them to do some specifically for the senior and for the mom, then everybody's happy. So that's what I would do.