Youth Sports Photography Easy Simple and Fun

Before I explain our easy, simple and fun approach to sports photography, let me tell you a little about us. When Danielle Shaughnessey and I decided to rent a studio space together, The Corner Studio, we weren’t really sure how it would go. We assumed we would be just sharing the space, but then slowly we began to realize there are many things that are just easier and better if we do them together. While we each still have our own businesses, that are thriving, we decided to start doing some other things together. Our first joint venture was the Holiday mini sessions together and special event mini sessions for the Wilbraham Children’s Museum.

All along Danielle kept saying, what about Sports? Now Danielle and I are the perfect example of glass half full or half empty. She is a half full all day everyday. She is truly the little engine that could. Me? I am the skeptic. I am the buzzkill. Honestly this is why we work so well together. I keep her feet on the ground and she pushes me to try new things. For quite a few months she would bring up sports- and little engine away “I think we can, I think we can, I think we can”. And I would shoot her down. We don’t have the right equipment, they seem like such a hassle, there is already someone doing them in the area etc etc.

Then last summer Andrea from Falcons Football reached out to me. They were looking for a new photographer. I believe Danielle and I were sitting in my backyard when I got the message and the smile that split her face! And you know what she said, “I think we can!” By then we had improved our equipment and now they were asking us, so 2 obstacles were removed.

We sat down to brainstorm. We did not want to do it the way it has always been done. As moms we have been through that process and knew what we liked and what we didn’t like. And we got back to Andrea with our proposal. I am going to share with you our philosophy of Sports Photography.

EASY, SIMPLE AND FUN

That is our philosophy and how we have structured our sports photos. We want them to be easy, simple and fun for everyone.

Easy and Simple sort of go together. NO MORE PREORDERS OR PAPER FORMS! That was our first decision. By eliminating the paper forms and preorder requirements we took away a lot of chaos of picture day. Now as a parent your only job is get your child to the right place at the right time in their uniform. And let’s be honest… that is not an easy task many days! And if you accomplish that you deserve a star, and we get that! No more dividing the kids up and trying to figure out who paid for an individual picture and who didn’t. Why? Because picture day should be FUN for everyone- regardless if your parents have paid. So, we take a picture of every single athlete.

We know the reason they do pre-orders- you know how much you will make up front. But I hate that you have a buy a picture you haven’t seen. I also know you may think you aren’t going to buy a picture, but may change your mind when you see it. We are taking a gamble on us- we are confident we are going to produce pictures you are going to want to buy. And if we don’t, we don’t deserve your sales. Plain and simple.

We also made the choice to only offer a small amount of products. Prints and digitals- no mugs, or dog tags or any of that. Will we include those things at some point? Probably, but we were trying to make it simple. And we are so grateful that Andrea and Falcons Football and later Cheerleading supported our choices.

We decided that we were going to take more than one picture of each athlete. You know I have a hard time only taking one picture and then only showing you one picture?? That sounded awful to us. Our plan is always to try to take 3 different poses. We do some serious and some smiley- and if your child throws in a little something extra we will include those as well! See? How can I choose which one to delete?

Now that you know our philosophy, let me show you the results. This was our set for Football. We got a lot of positive feeback and gained some confidence.

But let me tell you about Lacrosse! We just did these pictures this past week. Again we had a plan for 3 poses. We always will include a close up as one of them!

But then a funny thing happened. As we were working with the older boys- one of them turned to me and said, “do I have to do your pose or can I do my own?” I said you can do your own for the first one- go for it. Because we aren’t just delivering one picture- I know I will get at least one or two of the standard pictures parents expect. And remember our philosophy? FUN was important to us. Oh and it got so fun!

They loved it! We loved it! As we were finishing, we were still waiting on the last two to gear up, so we said- hey if you want a picture with your friend jump in! Now am I expecting parents to buy all of these? Nope! But I do know the athletes left saying, “that was so fun!”

Don’t worry we still got the classic team photo!

but… we also got a FUN one!

We got to work with the little ones later in the week. And for them we tried to grab their siblings too if we could- because why not? We had time and what parent doesn’t love a picture of their children together? We will never say no to sibling picture.

We have learned a lot. We are going to try a new online ordering system- fingers crossed! We are really happy with our choices. And now we are looking for more opportunities. Are you in a town that is looking for a new studio to do your sports pictuers? Please consider The Corner Studio for easy, simple and fun pictures or send me a message.

And one more because I can’t resist… I said, now show Danielle your cutest face!