What is better than one photographer plus several girls and one big rep shoot?  TWO photographers plus several girls and one big rep shoot!!  Kelly Klatt of Photogrpahy by Kelly Klatt says that after a trip to Vegas where she gained tons of information from Prime Workshop and WPPI, her head was spinning with ideas of what to do next.  Her friend and fellow photographer felt the same and so they put their heads together and combined their rep shoots!  There is nothing better than Concept and Collaboration shoots especially when they are for your senior reps!!

Check out what Kelly had to say about the shoot, how she put it together and how she showed the seniors their photos!  Hint…there was a big screen involved!  What an awesome idea!  Thanks for sharing Kelly!  Be sure to check out both Kelly and Angela’s (kelly’s partner on this shoot) sites for more of their fabulous work!  And for more on this shoot, check out the video from the shoot by clicking here.

How many years have you done rep programs for your senior photography business?
This year is my first official attempt.  Up until last year, all I photographed was newborns/families…breaking into the senior market is not easy!   Last year I had 3 girls do mini photo-shoots (separately) in May, then gave them senior rep cards (with session discounts) to hand out to classmates.

What is something new that you are doing this year with your rep program?

This February I went to Vegas and attended the ‘prime’ workshop hosted by Sarah Lane Studios and Photography by Meg.  The main reason I went was to learn how they executed successful senior rep programs (and because Sarah and Meg are two photographers that I’ve admired for a long time).  The biggest change I made was from doing individual senior ‘model’ shoots in the spring, to doing one big shootout with a lot of teens at once.

Tell me a little about collaborating with another photographer for this rep shoot?

I went to the Vegas workshop with a good friend of mine, Angela Healy (of Linabell photography).  We both photograph a lot of newborns/children/families, and wanted to branch out into senior photography.  After the workshop, both of our heads were spinning with ideas and concepts that we could try in our own towns (our studios are about 20 minutes from each other).   One day this past April we were talking on the phone, and after taking turns complaining about how stressed out we were about taking on such a big project, it hit us…DUH, let’s do this together! Very earth shattering stuff, I tell ya!  But it just made sense…we both have similar tastes and style…we enjoy hanging out…and we weren’t afraid of ‘senior poaching’ or anything like that.  Neither of us wants to photograph 200 seniors a year.  We are perfectly happy running small boutique studios that only photograph 20-30 seniors each year.  There are plenty of seniors to go around!

Do you do individual rep shoots for each girl or a group rep shoot?

This year was all about the big group.  It’s a lot of planning and organizing, but the actual ‘shoot’ is just one day, instead of many little shoots all spring. There are bonuses to doing it all at once…you can get everyone’s hair/makeup done in one fell swoop…it is also more of a bonding experience for the seniors~they get to be ‘in the trenches’ together!

Was there a theme or concept for your rep shoot…how did you pull it together?

We knew we wanted to do 2 different looks…Angela wanted to do the ‘boho chic’ look, and I was all over the ‘nautical fresh’ theme…we created pinterest boards with clothing and prop ideas that we thought would work well.  We each chose a handful or senior models from the kids that had filled out our model application.  I ended up using  5 girls from the same school~haha!  Angela had 3 girls and a boy from different schools around her area.

We had a ‘mandatory’ meeting for all of the models at Angela’s studio.  We asked them all to look at the pinterest boards ahead of time, and then come to the meeting with whatever they had in their closets that ‘might’ work with the looks we had pinned.  During the meeting we went through everything with the models and their moms…’what to expect’ ‘what to bring’ ‘schedule of the day’ ‘what happens afterwards’, and so on.   One of our make-up artists came to the meeting, and we had a brief conversation with each model about the clothes they needed to buy/find VS what they brought with (many of them already had awesome stuff in their closets!), and we also discussed what we would be doing with their hair/makeup for each ‘look’.

We served pizza and snacks at the meeting, and I think once we expressed what a ‘big deal’ this shoot was going to be, the models were excited!

Tell me a little about the day of the shoot ‘plan’?  Where did it take place?

The shoot was happening at my studio, which is located in Buffalo, Minnesota~about 45 minutes NW of Minneapolis. The day of the shoot was rainy and cool.  We were watching the radar like a hawk, and it was not looking good…I honestly would have rescheduled for the next day (which was our backup day), but the weather looked even worse for the next day!  We decided to just suck it up and go with the flow, rain or no rain~it was happening!

We had 2 fabulous hair/makeup gals, and an awesome film maker arrive at my studio around 12:30pm to get set up. The models began to arrive around 1pm.  Angela and I went outside and set up the ‘boho’ look in my backyard in the pouring rain (awesome).  At 3:30pm the rain took a break, and we headed out back to begin shooting.  At 4:30pm, we ran back into the studio to change for the nautical portion.  We hopped into cars and caravanned to a nearby beach area.  We wrapped up around 7pm, just in time for the rain to start doing its’ thang again.

What does each girl receive for being a rep?

Besides getting to play supermodel for the day?  They get the following:

*VIP screening party~the reveal video/pictures from the shoot were shown for the first time at our local theater (2 weeks after the session)!  It was pretty sweet seeing the video on the big screen!!

*1/2 off the price of their senior session.

*Swag Bag (filled with goodies: bath and body works, candy, little frame with a group photo, cute t-shirts that say ‘the camera loves me’, wallet tins filled with wallets of themselves to hand out to friends ((that have a special offer on them as well)).

*When they book their regular session, they are able to download all of the watermarked images from the day (from both photographers).

What equipment was used for this shoot?

I shoot with a Nikon D700, 50mm 1.4, 85mm 1.4, and 24-70mm 2.8.  I had to use a hint of fill flash for some of the group shots, since it was such a dark day and I had to shoot at a higher aperture to keep everyone in focus.

What props were used and where did they come from?

A combination of stuff we had, stuff we borrowed, and stuff we bought!  The tapestries were from Anthropology…some of the girls headbands were from Claire’s…The ‘nautical towels’ were pieces of fabric I bought at the fabric store. Wedidn’t really purchase a lot of props for this shoot…it was more about their outfits than anything.

What tips would you give to other photographers looking to build a senior rep program?

If you’re going to do it~plan well, and go all out!  Not that you have to spend a ton of money…but you do have to ‘wine and dine’ the seniors a little bit…they have so much on their plates these days…and who they choose for their senior portraits is just one drop in their crazy-big bucket.  In the area I live in, seniors have 2 main choices for picking their photographer:  either use one of the ‘big name’ studios that have been photographing seniors since the stone age (they produce quality images that are typiccally very traditional).  OR, they can choose from the swarms of shoot and burners…many of which are their own classmates!  And you know what?  They think that the portraits their classmates produce is good~they are so used to seeing crappy i-phone-ography, that an underexposed, blurry photograph of themselves is considered “super cute”!!  I’m hoping that they discover a third option…(errrrr, me?!) a photographer that has 3 fabulous qualities:  *quality *great service *fresh, modern images.  To catch the attention span of the fast paced senior crowd…you have to stand out and prove that the experience will be worth it.  In summary, YES, your pictures have to be amazing, but the experience you provide has to be killer.  I’m still learning how to make it happen…