Looking for photographers to talk to about a new school portrait program

[Picateers]

Picateers offers schools a unique new portrait program. Rather than having Lifetouch send in an under-trained and under-paid "photographer", we help schools find someone in their community who can be taught to take portraits with a consumer DSLR. The digital images are then uploaded to picateers.com, where parents can order prints. The best part is that the school gets to keep half of the revenue - so the portrait program becomes a great fundraiser for the school.

However - some schools would prefer it if we could send a trained photographer in to take the portraits. And we think that some photographers might like to use our program as a way to market themselves to parents - and thus to line up family portraits, holiday portraits, and other kinds of photography business.

So - we are looking for photographers who might be interested in working with us in some way. If you think working with Picateers might be interesting, please take a look at www.picateers.com. If you want to chat with us about ways that we might work together (we are still trying to figure all of this out - so we want to hear what you think would work best), send an email to "affiliate" at "picateers dot com".

Thanks!

 

[Mike_E]

So if I have a Digital Rebel kit I can get a job, is this what I'm hearing?

 

[lngroller]

So instead of Lifetouch sending in undertarined, underpaid photographers you want to do it, while cutting out hundreds of other small school photography photographers. That's what I am hearing.

 

[Picateers]

So instead of Lifetouch sending in undertarined, underpaid photographers you want to do it, while cutting out hundreds of other small school photography photographers. That's what I am hearing.

Quite to the contrary - we want to talk to those hundreds of small school photographers about ways that we could work together.

One way that we might work together is this: Picateers has schools that contact us about our program, but don't feel comfortable having a volunteer take the pictures. We would like to be able to offer that school an alternative to our "DIY" program - a Picateers "certified" local photographer who would come in and run picture day for the school. We can provide local school photographers with a "high tech" back end that reduces their hassle and gives a great experience to parents. The photographer can still make good money - and we would send you the business.

There are other arrangements that might work - but we need to talk to some local photographers to figure them out. That is the reason for this post, to try to find some local folks (either existing school photographers or aspriring pros) who want to help us figure out the right way to work together.

 

[Picateers]

So if I have a Digital Rebel kit I can get a job, is this what I'm hearing?

Well, our experience shows that a "prosumer" parent with a Rebel XSi, a decent lighting kit (which we provide) and some basic training can take elementary school portraits that are as good, or in some cases better, than your typical Lifetouch photographer. Why should a school let Lifetouch keep the profit? We give schools half of the revenue back so they can fund music programs, art programs, and much more.

But that isn't the point of this posting - we aren't looking to hire anyone.

We want to find local photographers (either pros or aspriring pros) who might find it interesting to work with Picateers. Exactly how we might work together has to be figured out - but we have schools that want an alternative to our standard "DIY" program, and we think that working with local photographers might be the way for us to provide that alternative.