Client has booked 9am to 1pm, one background, one room, and retouching is billed separately afterwards. I have done individual sessions but never a queue of twelve, and I do not want to be the reason their morning collapses. How many minutes per person do you actually plan for once people are being pulled out of meetings.
My first group booking had no running order, so people wandered in whenever, and I lost about ninety minutes to standing around followed by four people at once at the end. Now I send a numbered slot list the day before and print two copies, one for the door and one for me. Same shoot, same client, half the stress.
Twelve in four hours is comfortable if, and only if, someone on their side owns the schedule. My planning numbers are forty five minutes to set up and test on a stand in, then eight to twelve minutes per person including the shuffle in and out, then twenty minutes to pack. That is roughly two and a half hours of shooting for twelve people, and the extra hour is not slack, it is the two people who arrive late and the one who wants to change their shirt. Insist on a named wrangler who texts the next person while you are shooting the current one.
Put it in writing with a name in the field. If it is nobody's job, it is your job, and you cannot do it from behind the camera.
The wrangler is the part I would have assumed happens by itself. Adding it to the confirmation email today.
Set up before they arrive on a stand in. Ten minutes each, a wrangler with a list, and a hard stop you enforce. Twelve is a light morning if the logistics are handled and a disaster if they are not.
I did thirty in a day once and what broke was not the schedule, it was me. By person twenty two I was giving everyone the same three directions and the results look like it in the final gallery. If you have twelve, use the spare time rather than compressing it, and take five minutes between every fourth person to reset your own head. Also shoot tethered if you can, because letting people see one frame early cuts the tense ones down enormously.
@attic_server · 3mo ago · 2 replies
Politely disagreeing with the eight to twelve minutes. That works for people who are comfortable, and in a corporate group about a third are not, and those people need warming up before anything usable happens. I schedule fifteen minutes flat for everyone, which for twelve people is three hours, and I would rather hand back time than tell someone their headshot looks tense because we were on a clock. The client remembers the awkward person's photo, not your efficiency.
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@ines_marchetti · 3mo ago
Fifteen flat is easier to sell to a client than eight to twelve with buffers, and it removes the argument about who ran late.
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