Graduations can be one of the most lucrative photo markets. Best of all, Candid Color Systems® has all of the know-how and systems to help you be competitive and profitable in this market.

Candid Color Systems’ focus is different than most Pro Photo Labs. CCS has always been about marketing. We are one of the few professional labs that have a marketing department in house. We are also one of the few labs that operate a full blown retail operation which is also a marketing laboratory in which to test and refine our products and processes.

As Graduations, Sports, Parties and Events ramp up this Spring, the typical focus is on how to get enough good photographers; how to train those photographers, how to field enough equipment, how to upload images to the lab quickly, how to get proofs I.d.’d and posted quickly, and how to get manual orders input and to the lab. All of these steps are certainly important and must be done early to insure good sales.

Several weeks ago Kodak announced a contest to pick six of the best photographic prints in the U.S. photographed by Professional photographers and produced by a Professional Lab. Kodak asked labs to pick the best prints they had produced from the best photographs taken by customers.

CCS chose to nominate an Attitude Pano arranged and photographed by JOE Photo, Ed, Molly and Dan Kempf of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

In the early days of Party Pics we preached with religious fervor that contact or projection proofs (made from film) should be displayed for no more than two weeks and preferably no more than ten days. Many customers left them out only one week. Orders were placed by writing the name of the purchaser, the size and quantity of prints desired right on the proof sheet. That was the only chance to order the pictures unless there happened to be an end of semester sales each semester at a higher print price.

Increasing sales has several different meanings. It can mean increasing the number of events booked, increasing the size of the average order, or increasing the percentage of customers purchasing. Green Screen can have a positive affect on all of these ways of increasing sales.

The CCS Annual Seminar in South Beach, Florida is fast approaching. We have chosen South Beach because it is one of the most exciting and fun destinations in the U.S., especially as temperatures hover in the teens in much of the U.S. as I write this letter and will probably be similarly cold at the end of February, when we hold the Seminar.

Increasing sales has several different meanings. It can mean increasing the number of events booked, increasing the size of the average order, or increasing the percentage of customers purchasing. Green Screen can have a positive affect on all of these ways of increasing sales.

In the early days of Party Pics we preached with religious fervor that contact or projection proofs (made from film) should be displayed for no more than two weeks and preferably no more than ten days. Many customers left them out only one week. Orders were placed by writing the name of the purchaser, the size and quantity of prints desired right on the proof sheet. That was the only chance to order the pictures unless there happened to be an end of semester sales each semester at a higher print price.

School Portraits have traditionally been photographed on a preorder or package pre print basis (sometimes also called Speculation). In the context we are discussing here Speculation is entirely different. By Speculation we mean taking the pictures, offering paper or online proofs or both and taking orders by collection at the school, mail or online.

What Do We Mean By Taking Pictures on Speculation?

We mean photographing each child in several (2 or 3) poses, posting the proofs online, sending paper proofs home by mail or by the child, and having parents place orders online, by mail, by phone, by fax or by sending the proofs back to school.
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