Picture Day is a Chicago based photography studio specializing in school portraits. Located in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood, photo crews are sent all over the city and suburbs to serve schools of all sizes. Some of Chicagoland’s best schools are Picture Day clients, including: The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, Jones College Preparatory School, Chicago City Day School, Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School and many others, both public and private. For over 20 years we have photographed subjects of all ages, using gentle, patient photo professionals who make a sitting fun for the youngest of clients.
Brian Warling, the President/Owner and Mark Hubert, Director of Operations, started Picture Day in 2003. Brian, a commercial photographer, came to the aid of a client by taking photos at her daughter’s school when the scheduled photographer failed to deliver the photos. Brian enjoyed it so much he became determined to improve upon the school portrait product and process. Mark’s background in technology and database design were a perfect fit for the logistical requirements of the school picture process.
Brian has always enjoyed working with kids and is adept at making them feel comfortable in front of the camera. He knows how to hire like-minded pros with similar talents who are trained in our Picture Day style of creating portraits. Parents rave about the results as we’re able to achieve a more custom portrait look and style in a very quick amount of time.
We asked Brian a few questions about the business and his thoughts on its future, and these were his responses.
What core moment has given you a better understanding of how to build community within a company?
“I don’t know if I can cite a particular moment, but I can tell you that from the beginning, Picture Day has been about building community within and outside of our business. Inside, we’ve attempted to create a sense of involvement and of fun for the people who work freelance as well as our full-timers. Through our spring art show, our holiday parties, our season start-ups and other social connections we’ve celebrated with the people that we work with and that we care for. Our decision to pay roughly 3 times what the industry pays for photographers, has been about showing respect for the talented people who work for us and the value of their skills. For the organizations we serve, we’ve always made creating beautiful photos at an affordable price accessible to any community, our singular goal. We want to make school pictures accessible for parents, easy for schools, and a service to the school community.”
What do you feel Picture Day gives that no other school picture company does?
“There is so much. Our all-consuming obsession is to take beautiful pictures of every one of the approximately 50,000 kids that we photograph. It’s where every conversation begins and ends. In the meantime, we create systems that make the job of doing school pictures easier for our schools and the job of buying school pictures easier for our parents. We do this by surrounding our process with systematization that makes things easier but with amazing humans that can communicate with our customers at every turn.”
After 20 years, what do you feel Picture Day has brought into your life that would not have been there otherwise?
“Picture Day is our family business. Part of what “family business” means is that it exists very much as a part of our life. The people we work with become part of and know our family and our family is very much involved in the business. It’s all intertwined— for better or for worse! Having said that, the journey has been incredibly rewarding and I can’t imagine life without Picture Day. I love my life here in Chicago, I love what I do for a living, and I’m (almost) as proud of what Picture Day has accomplished as what my kids have accomplished.”
Looking into the next 20 years, where do you see Picture Day as a whole?
“Picture Day has grown an average of 20% per year. We took pictures for a school our first and second years in business and then lost them because we were too small and they requested services we couldn’t provide. On this, our 20th year, that school came back to us. That school is about 3 times larger than they were then and we are about 150 times the size that we were then. There is no service that we can’t provide these days. We can grow many times faster than we have in the last 20 years and still only serve a portion of the Chicago area school picture market. We look forward to providing the whole Chicago area truly beautiful school pictures.”
So, as we roll into a new school year we’re ready to continue the work we love doing so much at Picture Day! Growing and optimizing to better serve schools and parents every step of the way.
