Alternative School Portraits

Do you ever look back on your school photos from when you were a kid and just cringe, wondering “what the heck was I thinking with that outfit?” Various hairstyles and big glasses and buck teeth and the big zit in the middle of your forehead when you’re 14. Those awkward and genuine moments are really what makes a good school photo documenting that time in your life. A split moment of capturing grins and smiles, zits and frowns. Those are the moments that we recognize and remember in 20 or 30 years. Here’s a few of mine from the 90s.

A couple of days ago I stumbled across a post on a local Facebook page where the poster wasn’t satisfied with the way their school photos turned out this year. They questioned pricing, the photographer skills and techniques. Blurry photos. Customer service problems. I responded, giving them the point of view from a photographer within the industry. All those things happen because they are trying to take photos of hundreds, if not a couple thousand children within a day or two. They don’t have time to look to see if your child is frowning at the camera. They don’t have time to fix your child’s collar that’s tucked under. They just want to get those kids through their line as quickly as possible. There’s always retakes, right? (I do know there were great parent volunteers at picture day at our school who were trying to do their best to help the younger kids. I am grateful for them.)

One point that was brought up was “why doesn’t the school district hire local photographers to do this task for our schools so we can support small locally owned companies?“ While most people would think this is a great idea, most small business photographers don’t have the ability to handle this capacity of portraits. Also, the school district often gets deals on yearbooks, ID tags, and staff pictures.

So, I felt that there was a need and a want for a more personalized boutique experience for families in my area. My business certainly does not have the resources to efficiently photograph a whole district of kids, but I can offer a boutique personalized experience resulting in high quality images that will authentically reflect this moment in a child’s life. I already do photo sessions for preschools, so why not bring that out to the general public? Last spring I did personality portraits for kids. They turned out really great, so why couldn’t I bring that to my community?

Introducing alternative school portraits! These are my personality sessions on a larger scale. These 10 minute sessions will be personalized for your children. Each child gets 10 minutes. We fill out a survey ahead of time so I can get to know them a little bit then we take some time to chat while I photograph them. I make sure to give them enough time to let their personality really shine through. They can smile. They don’t have to. I want to capture an image that you will be able to look back on and say “that is my kid”. Sibling portraits will be taken as well, if wanted.

These sessions will be held on November 11th, between 12 PM and 2 PM at the Oregon Youth Center. These sessions are $95+tax. This is a non-refundable retainer due at the time of booking. This retainer covers your photographer’s time and talent, light image editing as well as one complimentary digital print of your choosing from a digital online private gallery. There will be the opportunity to purchase additional digital images and or prints à-la-carte at competitive prices. We all know how much grandparents enjoy having prints on their bookcase.

When booking, make sure that you book back-to-back sessions for your children. If you have three or more children, please contact Amy directly to book your sessions.

Since the Oregon Youth Center is allowing me to use their space that afternoon, I am asking for donations to their afternoon snack inventory. OYC is an after-school and summer drop-in center for youth in grades 5-9 in the Oregon School District. They were started in 2014 as an independent Youth Center, and moved to their new building in 2019. Their programming is a combination of formal activities run by staff and volunteers, and youth-led activities from sports and video games to cards and crafts. Some snack ideas include Bagels/cream cheese, sandwich fixings, frozen fruit for smoothies, individual snack bags, fresh fruit, cereal, frozen pizzas, gluten free snacks, chips, pretzels, cheezits,

Ready to book? Head over to my booking page to secure your time.