Trust Just Became Your Competitive Advantage

What Every School Photographer Needs to Know This Week

The largest school photography company in America is in crisis. And it just handed you the competitive advantage of a lifetime.

We don't photograph a ton of schools. Sports has always been our bread and butter. But last week, my phone wouldn't stop buzzing. Text after text. Screenshot after screenshot. All from schools we're currently servicing. Headlines about Lifetouch. About Epstein. About canceled picture days across the country. And every single message carried the same question: “What's going on with this?”

They didn't call a 1-800 number. They didn't submit a support ticket. They called me.

That phone call told me something important: trust is your greatest competitive advantage right now. If you're an independent school photographer, you should be getting out in front of this conversation — not waiting for it to come to you. Here are three reasons why this moment matters more than you think.

Reason #1: Trust Is the New Currency

Let me give you the short version of what's happening.

The DOJ released over 3 million pages of Epstein investigation files on January 30th. Lifetouch — the largest school photography company in America — got pulled into the conversation because of a corporate ownership chain. Lifetouch is owned by Shutterfly. Shutterfly is owned by Apollo Global Management. Apollo's co-founder and former CEO, Leon Black, is named in those files. He paid Epstein $158 million over six years for financial advice and stepped down from Apollo in 2021 after those ties became public.

Now here's what's important: Lifetouch itself is not named in the Epstein files. There is no evidence that student photos were misused or shared. Lifetouch CEO Ken Murphy has said publicly that Apollo has no involvement in daily operations and no one from Apollo has ever had access to student images.

But here's the thing. It doesn't matter.

Parents are furious. Districts from Texas to New Jersey to California are canceling picture days, launching investigations, and reviewing contracts. Petitions are circulating. Social media is on fire. The Associated Press, HuffPost, Snopes, ABC News — they've all covered this story in the last week alone.

And this is where you come in.

According to Gallup's most recent institutional confidence survey, 70 percent of U.S. adults express confidence in small businesses — making them the most trusted institution in the country.¹ Not big corporations. Not media. Not government. Small businesses. That's you. You're not buried under six layers of private equity holding companies. You're a real person. With a real name. Who shows up at the school.

Right now, that matters more than your lighting setup or your pricing sheet. Trust is the currency, and you're sitting on a vault full of it.

Reason #2: Transparency Is Your Superpower

Here's what Lifetouch is doing right now: issuing corporate statements, posting on Instagram, sending form letters. It's classic crisis communication. And to their credit, they're saying the right things.

But you know what they can't do? Walk into the principal's office on Tuesday morning, sit down, look them in the eye, and say: “I saw the news. I want you to know exactly how we handle your students' data. And I brought our privacy policy so you can see it in writing.”

That's your superpower. Proximity. Transparency. Direct personal accountability.

A 2024 study published in Psychology & Marketing found that perceived brand transparency has a strong positive relationship with brand trust — with a correlation coefficient of 0.82.² In plain English? The more transparent you are, the more people trust you. And that trust directly impacts whether they keep doing business with you.

So what does transparency look like for you this week?

1. Reach out first. Don't wait for the school to ask. Send a brief, professional email or make a phone call. Acknowledge you've seen the news. Reassure them about your data practices.
2. Know your five talking points. Independent ownership. Secure data handling. A formal privacy policy. No unauthorized third-party sharing. Direct personal accountability.
3. Get a formal privacy policy in writing. If you don't have one, create one. Schools are going to start asking for documentation — not just verbal assurances. If you need a template, we have one.
4. Train your staff. Anyone who walks into a school building should know how to answer the question: “Are you connected to Lifetouch?” The answer is simple and powerful: “No. We're independently owned. I'm the person responsible for your students' photos, and I'm standing right here.”
5. Understand FERPA. Lifetouch is citing FERPA compliance in its defense. School administrators are hearing that language right now. You should be speaking it too.

You don't need a PR firm. You don't need a crisis communications team. You need a conversation. And you need to be the one who starts it.

Reason #3: Timing Is on Your Side

I talk a lot about the two-season rule — the idea that you should always be prospecting two seasons ahead. This situation just accelerated that timeline.

Right now, school administrators and PTA leaders across the country are sitting in meetings asking the same question: “What are we going to do about this?” Some districts have already canceled Lifetouch contracts. Others are reviewing them. And nearly all of them are wondering what the alternative looks like.

You're the alternative.

According to PwC's 2024 Trust Survey, 40 percent of consumers have stopped buying from a company because they didn't trust it.³ That's not a hypothetical. That's schools actively looking for a new photographer. This week. Right now.

But here's the critical piece most photographers will miss: this window won't stay open forever. The news cycle will move on. The panic will subside. Schools will either find a new photographer or quietly re-sign with Lifetouch because nobody else showed up.

Don't be the photographer who sees this on the news, thinks “that's interesting,” and goes back to editing last weekend's basketball tournament. Be the one who picks up the phone.

If you've been competing against Lifetouch for a school contract and losing on price, the conversation just changed. It's not about price anymore. It's about trust. And you already have it.

Here's the bottom line. The Lifetouch controversy isn't your scandal. But make no mistake — this is an industry crisis. When parents start questioning whether any company should be photographing their children at school, that affects all of us. Every independent photographer. Every lab. Every person who makes a living in this space. The only way to counter that wave of distrust is to meet it head-on with something a national chain can't offer: a real person, standing in the room, ready to answer every question.

Your response — or your silence — will define how your schools see you going forward. Trust. Transparency. Timing. Those three words are your playbook this week.

Imagine what's possible if you make five phone calls this week. Five emails. Five face-to-face conversations with administrators who already know your name. You're not selling. You're not capitalizing on someone else's crisis. You're showing up. You're being the kind of business partner that a national chain simply cannot be.

That's not opportunism. That's leadership.

We've developed a complete Student Data Privacy Toolkit — including a ready-to-use privacy policy template, staff talking points, and school-facing email templates.