This morning we had our Annual “Photos with Santa”. And after all that planning and preparation the first phase is complete. Phase one is to market it, install the set and take the photos. Next weekend the families come along and collect their photos – Phase 2!
We provide the photos free of charge and make them as beautiful as possible. Hopefully helping to secure the attendance of the families in making them return next weekend to pick up their photo. It’s become a tradition since we began it about 6 years ago. It’s great to provide it for free and it saves parents having to fight the crowds at the local shopping center. Depending on how your church feels about Santa (we have no problem at all!) it’s a really cool thing to do!
See Pics below of ours and How to Do it!
HOW TO DO IT:
You need: Digital camera, tripod, photographer, Santa Costume, Santa!, Santa Throne or chair, Christmas Tree well decorated, Large beautifully wrapped boxes, Candy Canes, CD player, Christmas CD and to make the photos look even better install some lights! (I just used flood lights and carefully placed and hung them) And if you have any other great Christmas props to add to the set even better! (We had a Toy Soldier)
We had a list with a few columns -Photo Number, Family Name, Contact number, Description (here you write as detailed as you can what the children are wearing – so if your photos get mixed up at all after you print them you can easily figure out who they are!
After each photo we gave the family a little slip of paper that said “Thank you for having your photo taken with Santa, you can collect your photos on the weekend of 13th & 14th December from the Santa Photo Collection point in the Hillsong Kids welcome area”.
So this week I will do a batch color correct in Photo shop just to brighten all the images a little, burn them to a disc and take them to a photo station that will print each photo for 10c each. Then we place them in Christmas card photo frames and file them in photo number order ready for collection next weekend.
