What is Editorial Education Photography?
Education photography is essentially about showing what a school, college or university is actually like on a normal day. It’s not about staging everything to look perfect, it’s about creating images that feel real, positive and engaging, while still being well put together.
“Editorial” implies documentary style rather than posed pictures. So Editorial Education photography is trying to show how a place works, how students interact, what lessons feel like, and the overall atmosphere. That might be classrooms, science labs, sports, music, or just the general flow of the day. The aim is to give someone a clear sense of the environment before they ever step through the door.
Having spent 10+ years working with schools, colleges, academies and universities, I’ve seen how much of a difference good photography can make. When it’s done properly, it helps a school present itself clearly and confidently, without feeling over-produced or unrealistic.
Education photography is used across a lot of areas, including websites, prospectuses, social media, newsletters, displays and printed materials. In many cases, these images are the first thing parents or prospective students will see.
How important is it to have professional education photos?
For most schools and colleges, first impressions now happen online. People will look at your website before they visit, and the photography plays a big part in shaping that first impression.
For me the key thing is that the images look natural. The strongest images usually feel unposed, even if they’ve been lightly guided. If everything looks too staged or static, people tend to see through it straight away and it doesn’t give a true reflection of the school experience.
Whilst there will always be times when a ‘quick picture’ is taken on the schools camera or phone to capture that special moment the difference between a well lit and well composed photo is huge. Blurry, dark photos taken at bad angles don’t sell the school to its highest potential.
Why choose an specialist education photographer instead of a jack of all trades photographer?
Many photographers out there are good at dealing with whatever is thrown at them – we have to be as lighting conditions and models vary so much on every job. We have to be adabtable. However photographing in education settings isn’t quite the same. It helps to work with someone who understands how schools run and can be involved in planning the schedule.
Planning the day properly makes a huge difference. I have a blog post and have produced a brochure that will help you plan a schedule. Knowing how long things take, what works well visually (and what doesn’t) and key mistakes to avoid makes a huge difference to the images you get at the end. A photographer with no experience in working in this environment may struggle when presented with a class of students reading.
A specialist education photographer will…
Understand safeguarding and holds a DBS.
Know how to show learning in action and make it look interesting and dynamic.
Be comfortable working around students of all ages as well as head teachers and staff.
Keep branding and communication consistent.
Be able to provide images for different uses (billboards, posters, website banners and prospectuses).
Have experience creating images that work across websites, print and social media.