Case Study: Bringing Smiles To School And Beyond

Photos And A Fear Of Laughing

Let’s wind the clock back about 5 years, to when we first met Julia and her eldest child, Emma.

“To give a background, when Emma was around one she developed a fear of laughter. My brother let out this big booming laugh at a family event that made her jump out of her skin. She was inconsolable, and for about three years after that we always had problems with her and loud noises, and it always seemed to be specifically laughter. She hated anyone laughing, or spontaneous rounds of applause or singing. It was a bit of a nightmare for a while.

So it came to her first nursery shoot. We were waiting outside and I could hear Danny doing lots of stuff to make this little kid giggle, and he was giggling as well. And I remember thinking to myself, this is going to be an absolute disaster. Emma is going to hate it, anything he does is just going to make her cry, and we’re going to end up with all these photos of her scared. But it was entirely the opposite. She loved him, and it ended up being, no exaggeration, the best photos we’ve got of her.

It wasn’t just the fact that he managed to get some smiles out of her. It was the fact that he managed to get proper smiles out of her. It absolutely surpassed my expectations. And I think it might have even cured her fear of laughter. Because every photo shoot after that, we never had a problem.”

School Photos Through The Years

Emma and her younger brother Luke have always been a delight to photograph, and Julia was so happy with her photographs that when she moved nurseries, she took us with her!

“We moved house, and so we had to move Luke’s nursery. And the one thing I was going to really miss was Danny’s photos. I thought it was going to be a disaster. I’d seen the graduation photos from the new nursery and they were dire. Every kid looked the same, and they were all wearing these square-like, graduation hats. And they were just, looking at the camera, almost like they were convicts. It was really sad. So I sent an email to the manager cooing over Smiles at School and sent some photos and examples. From that, they invited him in for a trial and they’ve used him ever since. So I managed to get Danny to take Luke’s graduation photos at nursery, and it was perfect.”

When Luke graduated, Julia couldn’t bring us with her to primary school. So instead, she booked a private session for us to recreate the school photos – from the first day to the individual shots over the years.

“The school photos came back and they were dire. So, we actually went to see Danny at his studio and he redid the school photos for me. The photos he takes of my children are how I see them. He seems to capture their personality as well, so he manages to get that mischievous-looking Luke, or he gets that cheeky smiling Emma, and he manages to portray them as they are.”

Lockdown Memories

In 2020, the world changed. Lockdown hit, and suddenly nursery photos were a thing of the past. In fact, most things were in the past! But Smiles at School is all about creating memories, so we took the opportunity to offer a new service – doorstep photoshoots. Socially distanced, of course! And Julia was one of the first to snap up the offer.

“When the day came it was hammering it down with rain and I thought it was going to be a complete write-off since it had to be an outdoor shoot. But Danny said no, let’s grab some wellies and umbrellas, get the kids outside and do something. And that’s what he did. He spent about 45 minutes with us, just outside our door, with him getting very wet. And if anything, the rain made it better because the kids are laughing.”

Of course, as anyone with young children will know, the 2-metre rule was often lost on them. Which made things all the more challenging for us when taking socially distanced photos! Luke in particular thought this was great fun.

“Luke was just short of three at the time and he didn’t really understand social distancing or anything like that. So he kept getting too close to Danny, and Danny trying to obey the rules kept running away from him. Luke thought it was a game, so he carried on chasing him around our front garden! With Danny it’s like when the kids play up, he uses that to his advantage. He just mucks around with them and almost turns it around and uses it, instead of trying to work against it.Out of that, we got some really nice photos of Luke trying to chase Danny and having the time of his life. They’re some of my favourite ones because you look back and remember the good things from lockdown. That’s really stuck with me.”

We asked Julia what her overall experience was of using Smiles at School. She said:

“Honestly, I can’t praise Danny and the team enough. My kids call him Danny the Funny Photo Man, and they always look forward to seeing him. He’s got this way of making kids smile naturally. There’s none of the ‘Say cheese’ or anything like that. He just has this way of doing stuff that makes them giggle or smile or laugh naturally and he snaps the camera at exactly the right time that he captures it.

I recommend him to anyone, and actually, I get cross when people don’t take me up on my recommendation! I’ve even just asked him to take my corporate headshots because I wouldn’t trust anyone else.”

There you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth! If you’re interested in working with Smiles at School, either as a school or as parent, we would love to chat with you. Just visit smilesatschool.com and fill in a contact form, or call 01276 942042, and speak to us direct!