08/29/2026
Okay… since we’re apparently saying things out loud now… 😂
I need to say something, and I need you to hear me with your whole heart…
YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE TO WORK FOR YOUR PHOTOGRAPHER ON PICTURE DAY!!
You already own a dance studio…
Which means, as far as I can tell, you’re currently holding approximately 47 unpaid positions…
You’re the owner.
The artistic director.
The teacher.
The receptionist.
The costume coordinator.
The accountant.
The therapist.
The janitor.
The lost-and-found department.
The emergency seamstress.
And somehow you’re also the person crawling around on the floor looking for ONE SINGLE N**E JAZZ SHOE because little Madisyn swears she “literally JUST had it.”
You have 136 dancers coming through the building.
There are 412 garment bags hanging from every available surface.
Someone is crying…
Nobody knows why…
There’s a toddler in a tutu eating Goldfish crackers underneath the front desk.
A mother is steaming a costume in the bathroom…
Someone forgot tights…
Someone brought the wrong tights…
Someone has tights, but apparently they are the WRONG SHADE OF BALLET PINK and we are now approaching a Level 4 national emergency…
There are approximately 86,000 bobby pins in the building and yet somehow NO ONE CAN FIND A BOBBY PIN!!
And then…
Your photographer walks in and says:
“Soooo… how do you want to organize everybody?”
Ma’am… Absolutely not. 😂
This is the part where I would like studio owners everywhere to collectively stop accepting new employment positions on picture day.
Because when you hire me, I am not showing up with a camera and then handing YOU another clipboard…
I have a solid system…
I know how to move dancers through.
I know how to pose them.
I know that we cannot spend 14 minutes photographing one child while 73 other dancers slowly fossilize in the hallway.
I know we need to MOVE…
I know how to look at a dancer and fix the little things.
Hands… feet… lines… posture… angles…
Because there is nothing quite like spending 15 years teaching a child beautiful technique only to get the pictures back and discover your photographer caught every leap approximately three business days after its peak.
Beautiful dancer… Beautiful costume… $900 worth of rhinestones…
And we photographed her at the exact moment she looked like she tripped over an extension cord.
NO. 😂
Dance photography is its own animal.
And picture day should not require the studio owner to become an air traffic controller standing in the hallway screaming:
“GROUP THREE TO STUDIO B. WHERE IS EMMA? WHO HAS EMMA? WHY IS EMMA EATING A STRING CHEESE? EMMA YOU ARE IN FOUR MINUTES.”
Meanwhile your photographer is standing there holding a $6,000 camera asking if anybody knows what group comes next.
I DO.
That’s literally why you hired me!!
My job is to come into your studio and make this entire ridiculous rhinestone-covered traveling circus run as smoothly as humanly possible.
Your job?
Run your studio.
Love your dancers.
Fix whatever costume has inevitably split directly up the butt five minutes before photos.
And maybe, just maybe… drink your coffee while it’s still hot.
I’ll handle the pictures…
Because you’re not hiring me just because I own a camera.
You’re hiring me because I know what the heck to do with it.
And because neither one of us has time to spend nine hours in a dance studio wondering where Emma went.
She’s still eating the string cheese.
I guarantee it. 😂
So, studio owners… Just hire me already.
Seriously. 😂
Let me run picture day. Let me photograph your dancers. Let me worry about keeping the schedule moving, the posing, the lighting, the timing, the feet, the hands, the rhinestones and whatever the heck Emma is doing with that string cheese.
You have enough s**t to do…
Hire the photographer who knows dance AND knows how to run a dance picture day.
I’ve got this… You go drink your coffee.
Seriously… It’s cold again.
😂🤦🏼♀️
With love, Me
