Not everyone is cut out for volume photography. A large-scale school or league picture day can quickly turn into a frustrating jumble of logistical and practical nightmares. It’s enough to drive the uninitiated mad.

But some photographers are born for volume, like Rodney and Shiloh Getz, the husband-and-wife team behind Champion City Photography in Central Ohio. Recognizing a need in their area, they built an operation around efficiency and replicable systems, converting high-volume school and sports photography jobs into a thriving business known for consistent quality.

Turning to Volume, and Finding a Superpower

Prior to diving into photography full time, Rodney Getz, Cr.Photog., CPP, spent 22 years as a firefighter and paramedic. The work involved 24-hour shifts followed by 48 hours off. To fill his downtime, he turned to photography, a creative outlet and a lower-stress alternative to his day job as a first responder. When he started to get requests for senior portraits, he began to dabble in professional portrait photography.

Since his community already included two well-established family and senior portrait photographers, Rodney started considering different specialties. He soon found a calling in youth sports. “I felt like the sports market was really being underserviced in our area,” he says. “I got my feet wet with some youth sports and found out that we had a knack for photographing a large number of individuals in a short period of time.”

Organizing the chaos that often accompanies a high-volume picture day, and managing the data behind it, turned out to be the Getzes’ super-power. Rodney and Shiloh, who has worked as a CT scan technologist for more than two decades, gained clients and grew the business steadily, albeit slowly, while Rodney continued to work as a firefighter. He retired in 2015, and the couple committed to photography full time. They pursued new organizations, targeted specific leagues and schools, and worked their personal connections for opportunities. Through cold calling sports leagues, schools, and clubs, they continued to build Champion City Photography. Their persistence paid off, and Champion City today is a well-known and respected volume photography business. “We’ve learned over the years that just because somebody’s happy with the service they’re getting [from another photographer] at that point in time, that does not mean they won’t be interested in talking to you later,” says Rodney. “That’s probably one of our biggest takeaways. Don’t take a ‘no’ as a ‘no forever.’ It’s just ‘no for right now.’ For example, one of the biggest schools that we work with now, about 3,000 students, took us 10 years of no’s to get in the door. Now we’re in, they’re very happy with us, and we’re very happy with them.”

Consistency Equals Efficiency

In 2016, while struggling to keep every subject the same size in the frame for a composite job, Rodney had an idea. What if he laid down a floor mat with marked spots showing the subjects’ feet placement? What if he included marks for his tripod and his lights, so nothing moved from shot to shot? The Getzes put together mats with full floor guides for every camera station, spelling out exact camera settings, light placements, and background positions, so anyone—including other photographers on their growing team—could set up a session without guesswork. “Once we locked that down and realized it was working, the business just started to grow like a monster,” says Rodney.

Not only did the floor mat system help standardize their setups, but it also helped move subjects through a series of poses quickly and consistently. Color-coded guides are posted at every station that show even the youngest subjects exactly where to stand. “You just tell someone, ‘Put your feet on your red marks. Put your feet on the blue marks,’” Shiloh explains. “We can move through the sequence with them quickly, and with limited explanation, so we can focus on getting the most out of every interaction.”

The payoff shows up in time savings. Shiloh recalls that when they first started working with a local baseball organization, photographing a 600-child league took five full days. Today, with their system in place and a team managing multiple camera stations, they wrap the entire session in about 90 minutes. The Getzes’ efficiency includes their approach to image capture. “The biggest thing is getting it right in the camera,” Shiloh says, rather than leaning on post-production to fix problems. Lighting, white balance, and framing are dialed in on site, so there’s little to no editing once the team is back at the studio. Rodney also credits a strong lab partnership for a smooth workflow. The couple spent 17 years with H&H Color Lab before shifting to Candid Color Systems as their volume grew, and they’ve had great experiences with both. “It’s very difficult to go to a school or a sports league, photograph all these kids, and then be essentially done when you walk away [from the session],” says Rodney. “But that’s what we do because we are partnered with a great lab that supports us with systems that allow us to have some really awesome workflows.”

That partnership carries through ordering and delivery. Champion City offers a prepay option via a paper form alongside online ordering. After a school or sports league picture day, emails go out to the addresses provided by the client, which gives families time to view and order. Orders placed in that window ship free to the school or league office and arrive pre-sorted by classroom or team. Later orders go straight from the lab to the customer. “All you need to do is say ‘yes’ to Champion City Photography,” Shiloh tells the admins she works with, “and then you don’t have to do anything else.”

Family Business, Family Rules

Champion City Photography is a family operation. The Getzes’ three daughters have all worked at the business at various points, from picture day support to sorting cards. Shiloh jokes that she gets “fired” by Rodney regularly, only to be rehired once he remembers he can’t run things without her. Working that closely with a spouse, sitting at adjacent desks with no real separation between office and home life, doesn’t come without friction. “You definitely need to be able to tolerate each other’s nonsense,” Rodney laughs, but both agree the partnership works because everyone knows what needs to happen on any given day to make their system work.

Boundaries are also important, the couple agrees. Several years ago, as the business grew, the Getzes established set business hours during weekdays to handle clients. Now, client questions come in through a Google form, voicemail, or email, and the Getzes respond the next business day. These boundaries have helped the couple manage the demands of personal and professional life with the crtitical balance needed for their mental health and relationship.

Through the growth and changes in the Getzes’ life and business, one thing has stayed constant: the process. “Whether you’re a student, an athlete, a dancer, our process never changes,” says Shiloh, which, she adds, is a comfort to the clients who run bustling schools and sports organizations. They know their photographers will show up, do the job correctly, and deliver high-quality results, which is the goal of Champion City Photography: consistency and efficiency. If you make people’s lives easier and provide excellent quality they can count on, the Getzes say, customers will come back year after year. 

Jeff Kent is editor-at-large.