I encourage you to read through everything below. But if nothing else, here are the key points:
OUR GOALS:
1) Deliver the best sports photos athletes, parents and schools have ever seen.
2) Do everything possible to minimize the work required by the school.
Following is an overview of LKN Images’ process for creating and delivering sports banners.
- GET ON THE SCHEDULE. The goal is to have banners delivered before the first home game. Plan ahead and get your photo date(s) booked! We can schedule all 3 sports seasons before the school year begins.
- GET BANNER PHOTOS DONE ALL AT ONCE. It’s more efficient for everyone if we take the banner photos for all senior athletes at the same time for each season.
- TRY TO DO BANNER PHOTOS ON THE SAME DAY. It works MUCH better if we do banner photos on a separate day than when we do your team & individual photos.
- ALL SENIOR ATHLETES MUST REGISTER. We need every senior athlete to register ahead of time at LKNMediaDay.com
- MATERIALS ATTACHED BELOW. You can print, post and distribute these for coaches and athletes.
Scheduling
You know it better than anyone – the beginning of a sports season is chaos. You have the district, the coaches, the parents and the players all over you. The last thing you want to deal with is us! The good news is that it’s easy to get us out of the way early.
By March, the state usually has the school and sports schedules released for the next school year. So, months ahead of time, you can pick your dates for banner photos.
You have 3 sports seasons. So, pick up the phone, drop us an email or set up a meeting with us so we can get all 3 seasons on the books well before the school year even begins.
By March, the state usually has the school and sports schedules released for the next school year. So, months ahead of time, you can pick your dates for banner photos.
You have 3 sports seasons. So, pick up the phone, drop us an email or set up a meeting with us so we can get all 3 seasons on the books well before the school year even begins.
The 2-minute rule
You already have a good idea of how many seniors you’ll have on each of your teams for the next school year. We need 2 minutes to photograph each senior for their banner. So, take the number of expected seniors per team, multiply that by 2 and you have the number of minutes per team that we need. From there, add up all of your teams.
With the total amount of time it’s going to take, you can figure out the best way to fit it in the schedule. We work 7 days a week, so it’s entirely up to you when you want to do it. But having done this for a few years, here are some recommendations:
With the total amount of time it’s going to take, you can figure out the best way to fit it in the schedule. We work 7 days a week, so it’s entirely up to you when you want to do it. But having done this for a few years, here are some recommendations:
- If you can fit banner photos in right after final cuts and right before first practice, that always works best. Once practice starts, coaches are less and less open to giving up practice time as the start of the season approaches.
- Make sure you factor in uniforms. If you are getting new ones, we’re all on the hook waiting for FedEx.
- Don’t create a mosh pit! Having every senior from every team show up at the same time always turns into a mess, everyone feels rushed and the whole thing ends up taking more time than it needs to. Using the 2-minute math above, have each of your teams arrive in sequence. A little overlap is fine. Just not everyone at once, please.
- Girls tend to take more time than guys. So, schedule men’s teams first if you can.
Reshoots
100% of your seniors may not be able to make it on the scheduled day. And sometimes, athletes look at their photos online and want to have more taken. So, we have a couple of ways to handle that…
- If there are more than a few that need photos because they couldn’t make it, talk to us and we’ll see if we can schedule another day to come back.
- If there are only a few, then we have our studio in Mooresville set up for banner reshoots. The athletes can contact us directly and we’ll find a time that works for them.
Location & Logistics
We don’t travel light. We bring in state-of-the-art sets, lighting and cameras. We arrive 30-45 minutes ahead of when the first picture is scheduled so we can get everything set up and tested.
We prefer to do senior banner photos indoors. A gym, lobby or cafeteria (as long as all the furniture is pushed back) typically work great. We just need about 12’ of headroom and a minimum 10’x20’space. Add to that an area for the athletes to hang out.
If we are also doing your school’s team & individual photos, it typically works better if we do banner photos on a separate day. There are a lot of reasons for this including moving from place to place as well as the amount of time it takes for individual & team photos. But when we talk to get dates set up, we can figure out the most efficient way to get everything done.
If we are also doing your school’s team & individual photos, it typically works better if we do banner photos on a separate day. There are a lot of reasons for this including moving from place to place as well as the amount of time it takes for individual & team photos. But when we talk to get dates set up, we can figure out the most efficient way to get everything done.
Lots To Choose From
We take multiple photos of each athlete – different poses, different facial expressions. We come with suggestions on poses that look good for each sport. But we also encourage the athletes to be creative. In the end, this is their senior banner, and we want them to love it.
Registration
We have an online system where we need every senior athlete to register:
LKNMediaDay.com
On the first screen, the athlete clicks on their school and then their sport. On the second screen, they fill in basic contact information.
Why is this necessary? Well, two very big reasons. First, if the athletes don’t register and give us their name, we have no idea what to put on their banner. Second, we do everything online to eliminate work on the school. No paper forms (yeah!).
We only use the registration information to communicate with the athletes and their parent regarding the senior banners. We do not share the information with anyone else. But we need 100% of the senior athletes to register. No registration = no banner.
If seniors are participating in multiple sports, we need them to register separately for each sport.
Why is this necessary? Well, two very big reasons. First, if the athletes don’t register and give us their name, we have no idea what to put on their banner. Second, we do everything online to eliminate work on the school. No paper forms (yeah!).
We only use the registration information to communicate with the athletes and their parent regarding the senior banners. We do not share the information with anyone else. But we need 100% of the senior athletes to register. No registration = no banner.
If seniors are participating in multiple sports, we need them to register separately for each sport.
Banner Photo Selection & Payment
When the photo shoot is done, we process all the images and post them to an online site. Our goal is 1-2 days after the shoot is done. We then email and/or text the athletes and parent contacts (I mentioned that registration was important, right?) the direct link to their team’s photos to pick from. They are able to see all the photos, zoom in and pick exactly what they want.
When they find their favorite image, they add it to their shopping cart and check out. Payment is done online as part of the checkout. As soon as they complete that, we are notified of their selection, and we add it to the registration database.
When we alert the athletes that their banner selection photos are available, we set a deadline by which they need to make their selection (usually 2-4 days). We continue to email and/or text people that have not yet selected as the deadline approaches. In the majority of cases, we are able to get every athlete to respond. But if we reach the deadline and someone has not communicated with us at all, we will reach out to the contact at the school and ask them how to proceed.
When we alert the athletes that their banner selection photos are available, we set a deadline by which they need to make their selection (usually 2-4 days). We continue to email and/or text people that have not yet selected as the deadline approaches. In the majority of cases, we are able to get every athlete to respond. But if we reach the deadline and someone has not communicated with us at all, we will reach out to the contact at the school and ask them how to proceed.
Final Proofing, Printing & Delivery
All banner art is produced in-house by LKN Images in our Mooresville studio. When a team’s banners are done, we post them to an online gallery and give the athletes time (usually 24 hours) to view the final proof and get back to use with any issues.
We work with a great local printer in Charlotte (Metrographics) who prints the banners and then delivers them directly to the school. They are printed on heavy-gauge canvas with grommets in 4 corners ready to hang.
We are able to get all of this done in a matter of a few days after the photo shoot is complete.
We are able to get all of this done in a matter of a few days after the photo shoot is complete.
Summary
Our goals are to make this as easy as possible on everyone at the school and to deliver photos that are better than you have ever seen before. If you have been working with us for a while, you know that every time we show up, we tend to have something new. We’re constantly investing in education and equipment to keep LKN Images on the cutting edge of sports photography.
Additional Resources
- Athlete & coach registration site
- Video overview
- Banner & dynamic photo info for athletes
- Printable poster to hang at the school for athlete registration
- “Cheat sheet” for coaches. A quick document to give to each of your coaches that gives them the key info about banner photos
If you have any questions or issues, please contact me directly:
Kathleen@LKNImages.com
(704) 506-0109
