If you’re a wedding, event, or portrait photographer, adding school photography to your offerings is a fantastic way to diversify your services and boost your income. With strong demand in this field, delivering quality work can also open the door to other exciting opportunities.
What exactly is school photography?
Here are some examples:
- Portraits for the school yearbook
- Graduation photos
- Award photos, where students receive an award on stage
- School activities, like sports and dance events
Since these events happen on a regular basis (often annually), there is constant demand for your services. In addition, school photography is usually done on the weekdays, leaving your weekends free for other gigs, like events and weddings.
School photography requires capturing a high volume of photos within a short timeframe. Hence, there is a focus on consistency and repeatability. Clients are not looking for a creative photographer, they are looking for someone who can get the job done quickly and efficiently.
We’ve covered how to set up a pop-up studio for high volume portraits in a separate article.
Since you’re grinding out a large number of photos, you need to have an efficient school photography workflow in place to handle and distribute the photos. Your clients are not going to distribute the photos for you, because it’s too much work for them. They are hiring you to manage all of that for them.
That means you need a way to shoot, upload and share the right photos with the right people. Ideally, you want to be able to share the photos instantly, to create the greatest impact and generate more sales. Sharing the photos right away also saves you the trouble of doing it after the shoot, which means that your job is completed once the shoot is over. No bringing work home!
The perfect school photography software can automate all of that for you, so that you can focus on taking photos.
As school photographers ourselves, we built Honcho just for this purpose to simplify our lives. With Honcho, you can easily create the following school photography workflow:
- Upload photos from camera to cloud, as you shoot
- Share the right photos with the right people automatically, with AI-powered face recognition
- Distribute your photos widely while protecting everyone’s privacy, at the same time.
- Add to the overall experience with live slideshows and wireless printing
In this article, we show you how to use Honcho as the perfect software for school photography. You can also create a free account and start right away.
In addition, you can join our affiliate program and earn up to USD$88.50 for every new customer that you refer to us. That’s a generous commission!
Upload Photos Instantly, From Camera to Cloud
Honcho makes it super easy to upload photos in real-time as you shoot, instantly creating a shareable online gallery that works in any browser and on any device.
Here’s how it works: just tether your camera to your smartphone using the Honcho app. The app automatically detects your camera, and as you take photos, they’re sent to the app and uploaded to the cloud.
Honcho uses a wired connection for fast, reliable transfers and works with any standard data cable. High-res photos usually take about five seconds to upload, and you can even choose the upload resolution—from full-quality images to smaller, compressed versions (like 640px), which upload almost instantly.
What sets Honcho apart is that it doesn’t need extra hardware. Unlike other tethering solutions like CamRanger, which often require additional gear, Honcho just needs your camera and phone. That means you can move freely around a venue with virtually unlimited range while staying connected.
With Honcho, you can share selected photos with a QR code, or allow participants to find their own photos in the online gallery with face recognition.
QR Code
In the Honcho app, select the photos you want to share and tap on the Share icon.
Participants can scan the QR code to view and download only the selected photos.
Face Recognition
Share the link to the online gallery with the participants, where they can view all of the photos from the event. If privacy is a concern and you don’t want the participants to view all of the photos, we provide a solution in the next section.
Participants can tap on the Find Me button and upload a selfie. Honcho automatically finds just the person’s photos and creates a personalized gallery, by matching the photos to the selfie with face recognition.
This is especially convenient if you do not want to generate different QR codes for each person. Just direct everyone to the online gallery, and they can easily find their own photos within seconds.
Blur Photos in the Online Gallery
As we mentioned earlier, you can use face recognition to share your photos by giving everyone access to the online gallery. Participants just upload a selfie to find their own photos.
The downside? Everyone can see all the photos in the gallery, which could raise privacy concerns.
That’s where Honcho comes in with a smart solution: it blurs all the photos in the gallery. Only the images matched through face recognition are unblurred, so each person only sees their own photos.
This way, you can share the full gallery while keeping things private—everyone gets access to just their own photos.
Play Live Slideshows to Engage the Audience
For certain school photography events, a live slideshow can take the experience to the next level, creating an immersive and engaging vibe. It’s perfect for award shows or sports events. Displaying photos on a big screen not only entertains the crowd but also gets people talking and adds to the event’s energy.
It’s also a great way to let participants know your photos are ready to view and download. If you’re selling prints (more on that in the next section), it can boost your sales. Plus, it’s a surefire way to draw a crowd to your station—seeing stunning photos of themselves or their loved ones in real-time makes people want to buy them on the spot!
Honcho makes setting up a live slideshow a breeze. Just open the online gallery, hit “More,” and select “Slideshow”—no extra software needed.
Print Wirelessly
Selling prints can help you generate extra income without much extra work. Prints are especially popular for school portraits and sports events. We have users who can generate an additional $1,000 per day, and that adds up to become a significant revenue stream.
Honcho makes it easy to manage on-site printing, and it can be done wirelessly.
Let’s start by getting your printer set up.
First, download and install the CloudPrint app on your laptop—it’s available for free for all Honcho users.
Then, connect your printer to your laptop. In CloudPrint, you can choose your printer and paper size.
Finally, give a name to your printer so that you can easily find it in Honcho.
Click on Connect. Your printer is now online and ready to print wirelessly.
In the Honcho mobile app or website, select the photo to print. Then, tap on the Print icon.
Select the name of your printer and tap on Print. And that’s it, you have successfully printed with Honcho.
Since it works wirelessly, you can print on any device. For example, you can open up Honcho on your phone, and send the prints wirelessly to your printer—which is connected to your laptop.
This gives you flexibility in your school photography workflow. For example, you can have an assistant to manage the printing—accessing Honcho from the same laptop that the printer is connected to. Or you can print the photos yourself from the mobile app.
Conclusion
School photography is an amazing way to add to your existing services and bring in extra income. If you’re thinking about diving in, you’ll need the right school photography software to handle and share all those photos efficiently.
The right software can save you hours per event, giving you more time to focus on shooting and delivering a great experience—which helps grow your business. That’s where Honcho comes in. It’s the ultimate software for school photography, letting you upload photos as you shoot and instantly share them with face recognition.
Sign up for a free Honcho account today and discover how it can transform your school photography workflow.
In addition, you can join our affiliate program and earn up to USD$88.50 for every new customer that you refer to us. That’s a generous commission!
