My expectations...what do I kindly ask of you?

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I am passionate about what I do, and as much of a cliche as this may seem to be, I truly think I have the best job in the world.  As of 2024, KL Child Photography serves roughly 5000 children across the lower mainland, Fraser Valley and Victoria, and I consider myself blessed every day to have such amazing clients.  Many of my clients have been with me for 6, 7 or 8 years now, and they become like family to me.

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What does this mean for you?  Every school is a partnership for me - I will do my best to ensure the success of our photo day, but I need your help in ensuring that it runs smoothly!  Please see below for our general guidelines and expectations from our partner schools:

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1) The school director (or a colleague) is a point person for me, and is accessible via email.  During the preparation and ordering windows, questions will inherently come up.  I recognize that school directors are busy and certainly do my best to not impose, all the while asking that school directors respond to emails and/or information requests in a timely fashion, both in advance of photo day and after it has happened. Of course, please feel free to assign a staff member or senior teacher to this role!

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One note: I ask each partner for an Excel spreadsheet of participants prior to photo day.  Please note that this must be one spreadsheet per location.  To ensure that our files are correct, complete and accurate, I am unable to accept multiple spreadsheets per location. 

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2) The school and staff will promote photo day and represent our partnership professionally.  I would hope that you've hired KL Child Photography because you appreciate my services and support the efforts of my locally-owned boutique photography company.  I certainly value our partnership!  In order for our day to be a success, I need your staff to promote photo day and ensure that our partnership continues to be supported and valued.  This may include sending sign-ups (if warranted), advertising deadline extensions, etc.  I 100% have your back as an educational facility, and request likewise.

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3) We have space set aside for photo day.  While ideally this is a stand-alone space (ie: nap room, gross motor room, activity room, empty classroom, hallway, etc), I recognize that not all schools have this space.  I am happy to work in a corner of an occupied classroom whenever the situation warrants.  The general space constraints I need are a space approximately 10' x 10' with a working electrical plug.  The room can have either natural or artificial light.

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4) Children not being photographed are supervised by staff.  While I am an extra adult physically present on photo day, my job is to focus (literally!) on the child being photographed.  I cannot supervise other children while acting as a photographer, and as such, I depend on the staff to supervise/manage their children.  There's unfortunately nothing that affects photo day more than setting up in a classroom and meeting eager children, only to have photos be photo-bombed by other children attempting to play on the set, grabbing equipment or throwing items onto the set.  It is the obligation of the staff to ensure that children not being photographed are properly supervised and managed at all times.

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5) We work within a schedule and staff is aware of/follows this schedule.  While I'm happy to be flexible with the timing, following a schedule will ensure that we do not have multiple classes of children waiting around for photo day.  This is particularly prudent when we are in a classroom setting, and is done to minimize disruption to the class at hand.

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6) After photo day, manager continues to act as a point person.  This includes distributing flyers with passwords to families, communicating deadlines and changes to families, etc.  If you have a manager serving as the single point person for a set of schools,  our expectation is that information must be relayed to the site managers appropriately and in a timely fashion.

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7) KL Child Photography will be providing the school's sole photography services.  I honestly never thought I would need to type this, but here we are!  I am unable to serve schools that have already had a photo day provided by another photographer during that school year.  If you have already had this year's school photography services provided elsewhere, I will be happy to add you on to my calendar for future years.  The one exception to this is offering graduation services for a school that had general autumn photos taken.  

 

8) My digital gift to you.  For every one of my partner schools, I'm pleased to offer you the full digital gallery for you to use for the school's internal purposes.  This means that after our ordering deadline has passed, I will send you a full gallery of every final high-resolution image that you are welcome to use for the school's internal purposes.  This includes solo photos, class photos and staff headshots - you're welcome to download the files and use them for the school's internal purposes as you see fit!

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Providing the full digital gallery - which sometimes can number in the thousands of images - is certainly an anomaly among school photography services, particularly when this may include up to 18 unique images of each of your students.  Why do I do so? I feel strongly that I want my school partners to be able to enjoy the images we've captured, and to be able to use them accordingly.  That being said - one request: this full digital gallery is to be kept internal within the school's management.  I am unable to offer services to schools who share these images with their families.

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9) And finally...have fun and enjoy the process!  I'm committed to doing everything I can to capture amazing images of your students.  The schools that have the most successful photo days are hands-down the schools that have a vested interest in making our photo day run as smoothly as possible, and who are willing to work with me to make our partnership a success.