Photo Day Scheduling

A common question I've been getting lately is about the appropriate time allocation when scheduling teams for photo day. Since photos are typically scheduled around game times, it's essential to work directly with the league's photo coordinator when scheduling your team pictures. While we can typically photograph a baseball team in 7 minutes, our rule of thumb is to allow 15 minutes per team. However, with a seasoned crew and a familiar league, we sometimes schedule one team every 10 minutes. You can adjust timing accordingly for larger teams and based on your staff's experience.

Why allow 15 minutes if the photography only takes 7 minutes? I'm glad you asked—it's because teams will inevitably run late. The last thing you want on photo day is to fall behind schedule. If teams are delayed for their games because of photo sessions, it reflects poorly on your service and puts your relationship with that league at risk—even if the delays aren't your fault. We also prefer to be cautious when working with newer staff who may not be as efficient as our more experienced photographers.

After consulting with the photo coordinator, we typically create the schedule, and they inform teams and coaches about their designated picture times. We ask teams to arrive 15 minutes before their scheduled time to give us time to organize the players and allow parents time to place orders, get change from the cashier, etc.

Here's what the workflow looks like. The number of players in the league and how quickly they arrive will determine how many individual and team photographers you need for photo day.

1 Photographer	Teams Per Hours	Players Per Hours
1 team every 10 minutes	6 teams per hour	72 Players per hour

2 Photographers	Teams Per Hours	Players Per Hours
1 team every 5 minutes	12 teams per hour	144 Players per hour

Here's a sample of a 2 photographer schedule given to the league. This schedule is base on 1 team every 15 minutes.

Hope this was helpful… let me know if you have any questions.