Your guide to the PhotoDay world. Tips, tricks, industry news, and more can all be found right here.

These are the words tech guru, artist, and visionary Brian Derenski uses to describe the manner in which he’s growing his business successfully. It all began on the sidelines, while he took photos of his own child during their games. Curiously, this led to other parents asking if he’d photograph their children as well - beginning a small side venture for Brian. This all changed when he noticed the contracted league photographer taking photos of his son’s baseball team. Brian could tell he had a great way with kids, but he looked extremely overwhelmed. To help out, Brian gave him a card, and the very next week, the two of them were photographing an entire soccer league. Over time, the two became business partners. After experiencing a lot of initial success, the league photographer left their business to pursue commercial work - this left Brian in the position of sole owner and operator of his studio. Without looking back, he has taken on everything, serving as his own graphic designer, marketer, shooter, and editor. His versatile talents have created a unique photography business focused primarily on school sports and senior portraits.
Brian was eager to get away from paperwork and order forms. After piecing together a few different digital services, he stumbled upon PhotoDay. After working with it for some time, Brian fell in love with its use of cutting edge technology to get directly in front of the customer, being able to update his entire volume photography workflow without sacrificing the profitable studio package.
Brian tells the story of one specific team to explain how PhotoDay has saved him time, while also increasing his sales -
In 2018, he photographed a baseball team that had been unhappy with their previous photographer. The main complaint from parents was that they were unable to choose from an array of poses for their child. The interim solution Brian proposed involved creating a posing sheet from which parents could choose which poses they wanted - however, this led to a grueling, stressful shoot, taking almost four minutes per player to capture these poses. He later described the whole situation as “a nightmare”.
This changed in 2019 when Brian went back to the very same league, with one very notable adjustment to his strategy: PhotoDay. With the ability for parents to choose which poses they wish to purchase after the photos are taken, time and stress were greatly reduced for both himself and parents. As he said, “the multi-pose thing is gold with PhotoDay. It drives sales”.
A sales comparison
This table here shows an example of one baseball club photographed by Brian in both 2018 and 2019. After adopting PhotoDay in 2019, he saw his total sales jump by over $500, even with nine less orders than the previous year. This is explained by his average order value skyrocketing from $33.25 to $50.35!
“The longer you wait to answer someone, the less likely they are to care about the answer.” Brian believes strongly in communication and uses marketing to drive his business. The vast majority of his senior portrait clients are of individuals he has previously photographed on a team. Brian advises asking leagues for a full roster with contact information so that studios can directly contact parents and explain how their picture day works. Once a studio has this information, following up with customers with reminders and special offers becomes that much easier.
Brian has so fully incorporated PhotoDay into his business that he’s including it into his sales pitch for leagues. When a new league or team reaches out to him via his website, they are led to a page explaining how PhotoDay work. His website even includes several of PhotoDay’s educational videos, helping potential clients familiarize themselves with the process!
For these next steps, Brian has decided to pursue some new business. He had always shied away from volume school photography due to the large workload but now feels that PhotoDay has simplified things to a point where he can pursue those clients as well as larger leagues he had previously given up.
“I like to call PhotoDay my ‘Force Multiplier.’ It multiplies me times an exponent that now I can go out there and get way more than I was capable of doing before because it’s so much faster.”

Anyone who knows PhotoDay knows that we like to make a BIG SPLASH with whatever we do. But, for the rollout of PhotoDay 2.0, we kept it on the down-low for the past few weeks, sharing the news only with our users. But, today the wait is over, and I can finally shout from the rooftops - PHOTODAY 2.0 IS HERE!!! Read on to learn what PhotoDay 2.0 means for you:
PhotoDay 2.0 has reimagined our online workflow and sales platform so that it can be used for just about every type of photography job: schools, sports, activities, parties, events, portrait sessions...and everything in between! We built 2.0 from the bottom up - we took what worked for volume sports and expanded the gallery types for three different privacy levels - Private Galleries, Group Galleries, and Public Galleries. Learn more about each of these gallery types.

We've created an awesome new mobile app - PhotoDay Capture - that photographers can use on picture day with our new private galleries to automatically match people data with professional photos using FaceFind, our face recognition technology. Studios no longer have to worry about image numbers, bar codes, or shooting tethered. PhotoDay Capture makes sure that the right people data gets matched with the right images. Watch the below video to see PhotoDay Capture in action. Learn more about PhotoDay Capture.
You can now export photos and data in 3 formats: .CSV – alpha-numeric data, Service Items – photos plus alpha-numeric data, and PSPA Yearbook – photos plus alpha-numeric data. We wanted to give our studios maximum flexibility to take their magically matched data + images with them to create other school-specific products.

We streamlined job set-up to make it super-easy to set up any job with any of the new gallery access types, AdvancePay, price sheets, offers, and more.

There you have it - the highlights of PhotoDay 2.0 - but there's so much more to see! Sign up for PhotoDay or login to your Studio Panel today to experience the all-new PhotoDay for yourself. And, as always, if you have any questions, chat us up in the little blue bubble! We always love to hear from studios who want to transform their business with the only online platform that has built-in marketing tools to help you drive more sales and work less (for real!!!).

The first week of the “season” for school and sports team photographers is usually smooth. It’s a clean slate. As the weeks go on though, there are rain-outs, make up days, internal staffing drama- these small issues can pile up quickly and before you know it, so does the paperwork. The nightmare of paperwork can cause stress, negativity and headaches, none of which lead to happy photographers or great photos.
PhotoDay can prevent the paperwork piles and the stress, but communication and preparation are key. Before you start working with a new organization, make sure to ask the following questions:
How do you communicate the schedule with parents? Email? Text? App? Social Media?
How often do you communicate information regarding important dates with parents?
Can you add picture day information to those channels?
What type of information (files) can I provide to make this easier? (HTML link, PDF flyer, JPG file for social, etc)
Who do I send this information to?
Do you have an official or unofficial “team mom” or manager?
Can you copy me on all communications regarding picture day so I can stay proactive and follow up communications and make picture day a success?
Is there a place for me to hang posters parents will see in the weeks leading up to Picture Day?
Can I have a roster with contact information?
What are your biggest complaints about previous picture days?
The sooner you have that information, the sooner you can start your marketing campaign, not just to the league and coaches, but to parents directly.We asked some of our trailblazers, photographers who really take PhotoDay to the next level, to share their thoughts on how PhotoDay has changed the way they prepare for picture day.
I don’t have to spend time and postage printing envelopes. I no longer have to go drop off envelopes and pick them back up. Even though my marketing has changed pre-picture day, I have less marketing cost. Personally, I have a lot less stress worrying about completing all of these tasks before the season starts.
PhotoDay has completely changed everything about the way I prepare for picture days. In the past I would completely freak out about the upcoming shoot. From hiring or finding help to accepting credit/debit card payments, filling and running checks, filling out and assisting with order forms and so on. Now with PhotoDay, other than sending out my contact an email with said league/team announcing the event with a text code, there’s not much for me to do. This allows me to be personable with parents and players, chat up what I do and offer, and get everyone excited about things to come!
Before we only took photos of the kids who had an order form in hand. Some organizations had less than 60% participation. Now we use the flyer system and AdvancePay credits, and we assume everyone will have their photo taken - and we check Insights to see if my contact has even sent out the information. We can reach back out and push the information out again if we don’t see enough opt ins. It keeps them accountable. For the organizations who opt to use picture day as a fundraiser and elect to receive a % of sales back, we increase the fundraising amount based on participants (opt-ins) & purchases and the amount of athletes they have registered.
I don’t have to worry about order forms, AT ALL! It’s so much easier to communicate with parents - and the way I explain it to the coach- Once we take your athlete’s photos - you don’t deal with ANYTHING else! It’s totally hands-free for the organization!
One of the big changes I’ve noticed is that I have become much more proactive from the start. Our industry is maturing, and I feel we must move in this direction sooner rather than later. In the past, I’d meet with the event organizers and drop off order forms. The first question I’d ask is what the issues were in the past. Many of these issues can be addressed with PhotoDay. The most important question I ask is “Who is responsible for all of the marketing and content?”. For example, with one of my organizations I work with various directors for the multiple sports-- but there is also just one person who controls all of their marketing and content. That’s the person we all need to look for and provide all the resources they need to effectively communicate picture day.
Everything is different. Before PhotoDay - we had to lay out forms, figure out what we were selling and get them printed. Then we had to deliver the forms. We needed to get rosters for the kid’s names in advance. We need less staff at events now, so scheduling is a lot easier!
General Colin Powell once said, “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.” He probably wasn’t talking about picture day, but anyone who has run a picture day knows that it can sometimes feel like a war. At PhotoDay, we’re here to help you win the war and be the most successful you can be.

Today is a BIG DAY for us as we proudly announce Bay Photo as our sixth lab partner. Bay is a powerhouse in our industry, leading the way with innovative photographic print and photo finishing services for over 40 years. Their focus on quality products, impeccable service, and technology make them an ideal partner for PhotoDay.
“We needed an online workflow and sales solution that didn’t just meet the needs of our studios but also anticipated the future of our entire industry, which was a tall order,” said Larry Abitbol, Bay Photo founder and president. “We chose PhotoDay because of its flexible, well-thought-out features for today, and its unrelenting focus on innovating for tomorrow.”
The bottom line is that Bay Photo knows the pro photography market - they’ve served school, sports, portrait, and event photographers for years as a full-feature, full-strength photo product manufacturer. They also know that the secret to success goes beyond providing top products and services. They look to intuition and data to make decisions that best serve their studios - and they know that the latest technology, applied smartly, is an essential ingredient. We couldn’t be more excited to bring Bay Photo onboard.
Our founders Jon Dantes and Rainer Flor have worked with Bay for years before PhotoDay was even conceived. Jon, PhotoDay’s CEO shared, “The folks at Bay have always been our friends, but now they’re PhotoDay family. This milestone means a lot to all of us.”
People manage every aspect of their lives from their online, mobile devices. That’s why more schools and leagues are requiring photographers to have an online ordering system. Now, studios who love Bay can give today’s parents the experience they want!
The entire PhotoDay + Bay ordering experience is designed to be quick and convenient for customers. Parents can browse photos of their child in different poses/expressions and then choose from a wide selection of Bay products and packages, beautifully displayed and easily customized with themed graphics, multiple photos, and more.
With the ability to marry multiple expressions with a wide range of quality photo products, studios who use PhotoDay are seeing record high order values.
The key to successful online sales is marketing. Marketing drives everything from participation to order conversion to reorders. PhotoDay’s integrated marketing system kicks in as soon as the customer texts in one simple access code. Customers get alerts right on their phones about AdvancePay offers, gallery access, special discounts and more. We make it super easy for studios to set up price sheets, discount offers, and seasonal promotions, increasing the number of orders, average order values, and total sales $$$!
Bay Photo orders are fulfilled out of their state-of-the art facilities in Springfield, Missouri, and Scotts Valley, California. As soon as an order is placed, the order information will go immediately to Bay Photo for processing - and then ship directly to the customer. This seamless flow dramatically speeds up the time it takes from placing an order to receiving the products.
PhotoDay is free to sign up – so it’s super low-risk for photographers to give it a try. It all starts with one job. The PhotoDay and Bay teams are on hand to help with the initial setup to ensure that each job is a success.
Get ready to transform your business with Bay + PhotoDay - give your customers the ease and convenience they expect...and deserve! Sign up for Bay + PhotoDay today – it’s FREE to get started!

Do you usually collect money upfront for picture day? Does the idea of not walking away from picture day with a big sack of cash and checks terrify you? What if I told you that with just a little patience, you can actually earn more!
Taking your business online isn’t just a new workflow, it requires a complete shift in thinking about cash flow for your business. With online sales, you can sell, before, during, and even LONG after picture day. There are many more opportunities to stay in front of your customers with text marketing, gallery offers, custom promos, and many of the other marketing resources we provide here at PhotoDay.
We call this the PhotoDay Sales Tail. We have over a year’s worth of order data that we’ve analyzed. From the data, we were able to find out the percentage earned each day after the gallery publish date for a month’s worth of total order sales. And, here’s what we found:
Our data showed that 80% of total sales for a job come in the first two weeks. The remaining 20% came in the last two weeks! PhotoDay users are bringing in sales up until the end of the month and are seeing OVERALL BOOSTS IN REVENUE AND PROFITS TO THEIR BOTTOM LINE - see for yourself.


Why does this work? You're creating a whole new experience for your customers. You're bringing picture day to them - and you're able to continually engage with them personally using text marketing and offer incentives. You're also giving them the chance to view a wider variety of photos, pick the pictures they want, customize packages and product... the more flexibility, options, and convenience you give them, the more they will buy. Remember, also, that with PhotoDay there’s no batching orders or waiting until the end of the month. You get paid every time a customer places an order - and your lab gets paid immediately too - so no big lab bills are looming.
PhotoDay concentrates on helping you run your business more efficiently and drive more sales. We know the move to online selling is new for many of you, so be sure to check out our other blog posts to help smoothen the transition. We'll help you navigate through setting up your first job, giving you sales advice, and much more. Check out our posts 5 Ways to Take Your Business Online Without Risking Sales and Sell Sooner. Sell More. Sell Smarter!
Interested in taking your business online? Check out PhotoDay here - it’s free to get started!


No problem, we've got you covered. Whether you've been hired to shoot a 4th of July event - or you're planning to take photos of your kids and their friends, these tips from our team photographer will come in handy. Before we get started though, we need to let you in on a little secret... all sparklers are not created equal. This is important depending on the type of photo you are looking for. The longer the sparkler, the longer you can attempt at capturing. Makes sense right? Sparklers range from 20 seconds - 120 seconds, longer ones being best for light trails. Now, let's continue.
First up, nail that exposure triangle!
Can we talk about using the camera with flash a little bit more? Absolutely!



Battery died and forgot to bring backup? At a party but didn't bring your camera? NO PROBLEM. Take that thing out of your pocket and put it to some use! Phones can capture a decent photo when all else fails.
Can't wait to see all the sparkler photos this week! I'm sure you all will be taking some amazing ones for Fourth of July. Post some on Instagram, hashtag #PDsparkler so we can see them too!Have a great holiday!

Today is the day that we celebrate cameras and how far they have come. With the advancement of technology, cameras have become more affordable and easy for the everyday person to use. That being said, photographers have to find ways to stand out in the crowd by showing their creativity and skillset in every image. So, out of curiosity, we asked members from our team, whether or not they were photographers, what was important to them in a photo. Based off the responses, we came up with some recommendations for a photographer to achieve these goals. What do you think? What are some equipment that you would recommend?
Lightroom Mobile is a free and powerful app for editing your photos. Use its tools to create compositions that elevate the photo. make sure to keep these 5 basic compositional theories in mind: Symmetry, Rule of thirds, Triangle and Geometry, Negative Space, and Leading Lines.
The low aperture on this lens is great for capturing moments in low lighting and for creating a beautiful bokeh background. The best part? It has a low price tag of $100!
Use AI Servo in conjunction with Single Point AF to get the sharp focus you need with action shots. Select a single AF-point that is in the general vicinity of your action while still shooting in Continuous Servo AF. If you aren’t sure exactly where you want to want to be focusing, choose an area option because it will give you a little bit more leeway to get the focus.
Take many photos to get the right expression when using this memory card. It has minimum write speeds of 30 MB/s, read speeds up to 170 MB/s, and you can store up to 64GB of photos.
This system helps pose subjects with purpose by directing the subject’s awareness of the camera. The look and feel of an image will depend if the eyes, chin/nose, and/or collarbone/chest are directly facing the camera. For example, if we turn all three away from the camera and direct the subject to smile laugh, the image will appear to be more candid.
Tip 1: Color Temperature is simply the color of the light source
Tip 2: Different Types Of Lights May Give Off Different TintsColor Temperature deals with oranges and blues, but your light source may also exude different tints of color such as green or magenta. So when you’re shooting you may have to either change your camera’s setting to compensate, or if you’re shooting in RAW you can correct the tint in your photo editor.
Tip 3: Set Your Camera’s White BalanceWhen you set your camera’s White Balance you can choose one of the pre-sets (Sunny, Cloudy, Tungsten, etc…), or if you’re using a more advanced camera you can dial in your White Balance manually using Color Temperature. You can also choose AWB.
Tip 4: Use Live View To Dial In Your White BalanceIf you’re using a DSLR then using Live View to dial in your White Balance is great because you can see the adjustments in real time. If you’re using a Mirrorless Camera or a camera with an Electronic Viewfinder then you can do this in the viewfinder. By using Live View you’re able to set your White Balance accurately without having to do the “shoot and check” method.
Tip 5: Shoot In RAW For More Latitude When Adjusting Color Temperature And Tint During Post-ProductionWhen you shoot in RAW your images will retain the most color information, giving you more flexibility when you want to adjust Color Temperature and Tint later.

Lots of PhotoDay users tell us that uploading photos is their favorite step because it means the job is DONE and sales can start rolling in! So we wanted to make the upload process smoother, faster, and more reliable than ever. We listened to our users' feedback and came up with a shiny new upload feature that's gonna blow you away!
We're pretty pumped about this new feature. Here's why:
If you're getting ready to upload, here are six things you need to know:
Well, there you have it - PhotoDay's new upload functionality was designed to give studios a smooth, reliable, and efficient uploading experience. We can't wait to hear what you think. Share your thoughts in the PhotoDay Facebook Users Group. Happy uploading!

Want to know what your fellow photographers are up to? This past spring, we conducted a broad industry survey of volume sports, school, and event photographers across the nation. We learned that our industry with its changing demographics and sentiment has reached a tipping point as more photographers are ready to tear up paper order forms and take their businesses online.
Our survey showed that 84% of respondents were using an online gallery service for some or all of their spring 2019 jobs, and 42% said they were using an online gallery service for the “vast majority” of their jobs.
We also learned that 64% say they’re planning to take business online in 2019 - 28.7% are planning to go 100% online, while 36.2% are seriously experimenting with it this year.


When asked about their hopes for taking business online in 2019, 72% of studios in business under 5 years said they were doing it or seriously experimenting with it compared to 57% of studios in business for 10+ years said the same. That said, a vast majority - 86.5% of photographers in business under 5 years - were using online galleries for some or all of their spring jobs. But this number was only slightly lower for photographers in business for 10+ years, at 82%.
While the respondents were pretty evenly split between men and women, the study showed that more women are starting out in the industry. Women represented 60% of respondents who have been in business for under 5 years, compared to only 33% who have been in business for over 10 years.
Men and women share similar sentiments about going online, with women seeming to be a bit more ready to jump in. 70% of women said that they were planning to take their businesses 100% online or seriously experiment with it in 2019, compared to 58% of men.


If we look at age, only 20% of photographers age 55 and over said they were not doing any online sales this spring. That’s not too different from the 17% of photographers under the age of 34 who were not doing any online sales this spring. Age doesn’t seem to be a big factor anymore as everyone seems to have entered the digital age. Respondents age 45-54 make up the largest demographic (35%) who plan to test online gallery services this year.
We surveyed 310 volume photographers. Here’s what we know about them:
The event types ranged:
The annual number of subjects captured by photographer:
Experience levels in business:
While this survey was conducted by PhotoDay, it’s important to note that only 18% of respondents were PhotoDay users.
Taking business online can mean significant time and cost savings for photographers, as well as higher sales and profits. However, we know from experience that just uploading photographs to an online gallery and hoping to see these benefits isn’t the best strategy. Photographers who are finding the greatest sales success and workflow efficiencies know that an online platform requires a new approach to sales and marketing. For tips to help make the transition a smooth one, check out 5 Ways to Take Your Business Online without Risking Sales.
Are you one of the 84% ready to take your business online? Then, you should check out PhotoDay – it’s free to get started. Our team can help you put in place an online strategy that works for your unique business. Contact us here.
Get more info on PhotoDay and begin your picture day transformation!