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Holiday Gear Up

Holiday Gear Up
Are you ready for the Holiday Season?

Maybe not since we have roughly 10 weeks to go. For most photographers, the winter months can bring a noticeable slowdown, but this also presents the perfect opportunity to seize seasonal event opportunities like Santa Portraits and holiday parties.

These festive events are in high demand, and with the right tools, you can make the most out of them!

We want to share a success story from a Santa Portrait Event that took place in the last few years, along with how NowCandid’s Workflows can help you maximize your success this holiday season.

Santa Portrait Station Success

Rachel S., a photography business owner from South Florida, a few years ago landed a Santa Portrait event at a Zoo and turned it into a HUGE win. With Candid's Scanner ID Workflow, Rachel was able to use the same techniques of a typical sports or school picture day and apply them to the Holiday Zoo Lights Santa Event.

To manage the event, Rachel used the Scanner ID Workflow, and generated blank QR cards to pass out to people while they waited in line.

The QR codes were scanned by the guests who then paired their contact info with their QR code! Once they got to the front of the line, Rachel's photographers would scan the next guest's QR with their tethered device, and then take their photos!

The device tethered to the camera would then upload the photos right after they were taken!

With the contact info and pictures both in the system, gallery links were then automatically texted directly to the subjects, right away.

Overall, this event garnered over $42,000 in it's first year!!! Not bad for a couple weeks of work!

NowCandid Workflows: Make Your Holiday Events a Breeze

One of the key elements to success in high-volume holiday events is efficiency—and that’s where NowCandid’s Workflows come into play.

These workflows streamline the process of capturing, organizing, and delivering photos, allowing you to focus more on your artistry and client experience.

Here are two workflows you’ll want to use during your Santa sessions and holiday parties:

  1. Scanner ID: The Workflow Rachel used! It's great for efficiently collecting guest contact info while they are in line, letting you move the line along more quickly OR have more time available for additional photos. Contact info is essential for instant image delivery and post-shoot marketing.
  2. Type & Take: This works similarly to the Scanner ID Workflow, except you type the subject's contact info into your tethered device before photographing them. It is not as time efficient at Scanner ID, but it doesn't require you to print out many blank cards before the event!

Seasonal Retail Theme to Add to the Experience

The holiday fun doesn't stop at the event—it continues when your customers view and purchase their images! With our Candy Cane retail theme, your clients are immersed in the festive spirit as soon as they visit their personal image gallery.

Our themes include delightful touches like falling snowflakes, which gently drift across the screen. These animations help enhance the shopping experience and keep customers wrapped up in the magic of the season.

Theme: Candy Cane - Watermarking: Default

Use Overlay Art to Add a Special Touch

If you're looking to elevate the experience further, NowCandid offers Overlay Art, allowing you to add optional customized overlays to your clients' images.

These titles add a festive, personal touch to the photos, making them feel extra special, whether it's a corporate holiday party, a Santa session, or a family Christmas gathering.

Imagine sending clients their Santa Portraits, complete with a “Merry Christmas 2024” overlay or a custom-designed title that reflects the spirit of the season. It’s little touches like these that make clients feel valued and excited about your services—leading to more referrals and repeat business.

Why You Shouldn't Sleep on Holiday Opportunities

The holiday season offers some of the most lucrative photography opportunities of the year, especially when it comes to events like Santa Portrait sessions, corporate holiday parties or large family and friends gatherings.

With many photographers considering this time a "slow season," there's an opportunity to stand out from the crowd by offering fun, engaging photo experiences that families, organizations, and individuals will love.

Adding these events to your services can also build lasting relationships with your clients—because who doesn’t want to make holiday memories they’ll treasure forever?

Don't Miss Out: Prep for the Holidays Now

The key to success is preparation. Start planning your Santa sessions, promote your holiday event photography, and make sure you're using NowCandid’s powerful tools to handle your Events with ease.

And remember: festive cheer isn’t just for clients. By embracing the holiday season and seizing these photography opportunities, you can fill your calendar and finish the year strong.

Cheers, and may there be many holiday events in your future!

Candy 🍬

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Weekly Recap: Positive ID Improvements, New Product & Capture App Upgrades 🎓📱

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Hey photo friends!

We’ve got a bunch of tidy little upgrades this week—making rosters cleaner, products better, and the Capture App easier to use on busy Positive ID shoots. Here’s what’s new:

📋 Dashboard Improvements

👥 Extra Contacts on Positive ID Rosters: Now supported, just like with PhotoRosters

🏷️ Auto-create PhotoTags: Uploading a Positive ID Roster with new tags? They can now be created automatically in the Event at the same time

📜 Image Details history: Now shows manual unassignments for better tracking

🛍️ Retail Site Updates

🎓 Graduation Plaque: Text now renders live on the retail site

🎓 Graduation Tassel Frame: Text now renders live on the retail site, and features a gold gradient text instead of plain white, and has a new matching stock example

🖼️ New Print Products: 10×18 Print and 10×18 Group Photo now available in the Custom Offer Creator & Editor

📱 Capture App 4.20.3 (iOS)

🔠 Alphabetical PhotoTags: Tags are now sorted A–Z

📌 Persistent PhotoTag filter: Name Lookup will keep your selected filter until you change it or remove it—great for shooting one team at a time

💻 New iPad UI for Name Lookup: Multiple sortable columns + participant image counts in green (easy to see who’s been photographed already)

Better performance: Faster Name Lookup when working with large rosters

📷 Camera support: Sony 7RM3A now supported

🔄 Auto-rotation fixes for vertical images with CamFi & Canon Wireless

📡 Canon Wireless connections working again with the Capture App

🛠️ Small but Mighty Fixes

🏷️ Retail shipping & billing default now set to “Select” instead of "Alabama"

📑 Updated templates for PhotoRoster/Positive ID Roster spreadsheets

📂 CSV roster uploads now supported (not just Excel files)

🔍 Ctrl+F search now works on the Web Dashboard's Blog page

📏 Better DPI conversions in uploader & image details for cm → inches situations

👤 Positive ID Roster fixes for a bug that caused some images to assign to additional Participants

🖼️ Retail Groups tab cutouts now display properly as JPEGs when originals are hidden on the retail site

That’s a wrap for this week! 💫

From cleaner rosters to new products, these changes should make your workflow smoother and your galleries better.

Keep being amazing,

Candy 🍬

Weekly Recap: More PhotoTag Power + Capture App Upgrades 🏷️📱
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August 15, 2025

Weekly Recap: More PhotoTag Power + Capture App Upgrades 🏷️📱

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Hey there, photo friends!

We’ve got more PhotoTag goodness this week, along with some handy Capture App improvements and small workflow wins. Here’s what’s new:

🏷️More Ways to Use PhotoTags in the Dashboard

  • • Assign PhotoTags to Participants right from the Participant Details page
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📋Smoother Roster & Participant Management

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  • • Roster uploads no longer require you to manually remove parentheses in your files (one less cleanup step!)

📱Capture App 4.20.2 Highlights

  • • Use cellular while connected to CamFi or Canon Wi-Fi (great for maintaining uploads while tethered)
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🖼️Small Retail Site Improvements

  • • When cropping an image with a background selected, the cropper now shows the background so you can see exactly how it will look
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That’s it for this week!

Lots of small changes adding up to smoother workflows and better gallery organization. 🏆

Keep being amazing,

Candy 🍬

Photographing Homecoming Weekend with NowCandid: A Photographer's Playbook
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Photographing Homecoming Weekend with NowCandid: A Photographer's Playbook

8
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High school homecoming weekend is packed with photo-worthy moments

From the parade and pep rally to the big game, homecoming court, and the dance. For photographers, it’s a whirlwind. But with NowCandid™, even a small team can cover it all efficiently and profitably.

Below is a quick look at each event, the opportunities it presents, and the NowCandid tools that help you make the most of them.

🎉 Homecoming Parade – Kicking Off the Celebration

  • • Selfie Check-In™: Let parade participants register with a quick selfie before kickoff. Face Matching will tag them automatically later.
  • • Roam & Shoot: Focus on faces & emotional moments, not journalistic shots. The system will do the rest!
  • • PartyPics™: Upload images in real-time for attendees, parents and students to view instantly.

    💡 Every identified face is a potential sale. Automation ensures you don’t miss anyone.

📣 Pep Rally – Spirit & Smiles

  • • Selfie Check-In™: Continue building your attendee database for the weekend.
  • • LiveLoop™: Display photos on the big screen in real-time to build excitement.

    💡 More personalized photos = more likely purchases.

🏈 Football Game – Under the Lights

  • • Face Matching™: Match images to fans, players, and band members automatically.
  • • JerseyJotter™: You can even let fans filter photos by jersey number for easy finds.
  • • Live-Upload: Deliver shots before halftime!
  • • LiveLoop™: Show photos on the big screen during breaks for instant crowd buzz.

    💡 Thousands of game photos become searchable and personal, boosting sales.

👑 Homecoming Court – Crowning Moments

  • • Prepare: Add nominees to Face Matching™ ahead of time with Selfie Check-In™!
  • • Background Removal: Instantly turn sideline shots into elegant portraits.
  • • Live-Upload: Provide those crowning shots well before the night’s over.

    💡Court images have built-in demand, your social pics will encourage bigger package sales!

💃 The Dance – A Night to Remember

  • • Selfie Check-In™ at the Door: The best time to get Check-Ins!

    • Even if someone checks-in again, that's no problem! Get everyone to do it as they funnel into the dance.
  • • Digital Backgrounds: Offer multiple themed or elegant options for portraits, our real-time background removal makes it easy.
  • • Photo Booth + LiveLoop™: Between NowCandid's Photo Booth Mode & LiveLoop™, you have multiple upsell options that create more photos and more positive energy!

    💡 Multiple background choices can lead to one image being purchased multiple times!

🚀 Why It Works

NowCandid™ turns homecoming into a personalized, real-time, high-volume photography experience—without extra staff.

  • • Efficiency: Automation handles matching, sorting, and delivery.
  • • Delight: Participants see their photos fast and without searching.
  • • Profitability: More sellable images, quicker turnaround, and premium offerings = better margins.

A typical homecoming weekend is jam-packed with memories in the making.

For a photographer, it used to mean juggling notebooks of names, printing hundreds of proofs, or spending days in post-event labor. Now, with tools from NowCandid™, a single photographer (even operating solo) can confidently cover the parade, pep rally, game, court, and dance – and do it in a way that’s both fun for students and profitable for the business.

By using features such as Selfie Check-In™ and Face Matching™ to ensure everyone’s identified, QuicPics™ and LiveLoop™ to deliver excitement in real time, and Photo Booth and AI-powered backgrounds to offer creative products, you transform the event photography workflow from chaotic and labor-intensive to smooth, high-tech, and engaging.

In short, NowCandid’s software and workflows allow you to capture the full spirit of homecoming

Every candid laugh, every triumphant cheer, every dance floor twirl – and get those images into the hands of the people who will cherish them, almost as fast as the memories are made.

This means happier clients, more sales, and a homecoming weekend where the photographer can enjoy the process as much as everyone else enjoys the photos.

Here’s to using technology to work smarter, wow your customers, and make homecoming (and many more events to come) a win-win for everyone involved!

Let’s get in touch

If you’re a photographer looking to add NowCandid services to your wheelhouse – set up a call by clicking the button below.

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