I recently did a gig where I shot about 600 Santa photos in about 3 hours. As a photographer, this is a bit of a grind. I think I’d go completely crazy if I had to do this for an entire holiday season. There are screaming infants and toddlers who are terrified by the big guy in the red suit. There are teenage boys who are too cool for Santa and flash gang signs at me when I try to take their photo. There are 300 pound guys that think it is hilarious to get Santa photos (more of a problem for Santa than me, really). And with a huge long line, a big part of the job is to just get through them quickly, so it becomes sort of like the photography version of an assembly line. I have to be fast, but need to make sure the pictures are cute and not inappropriate (imagine in your mind a little girl sitting spread-eagled across Santa’s knee with her pretty little Christmas dress hiked up a bit too high. “No, sweetheart. How about putting your legs together.” Then tug the hem of the dress down to the knees for the photo.) Parents don’t like Santa photos that make Santa look like a perv.

     Doing it for one day is kind of fun. It was for a holiday party a local company was putting on for their factory workers and families. It is one thing for a big wealthy high tech or professional company to do a splashy party. But I think it is generous for a smaller company to do this for regular workers. This was my third year shooting their Santa photos, and the only Santa gig I did this year. 

     By the end, I thought my shutter finger was about ready to fall off. The poor Santa must have bruised legs from having hundreds of kids (and adults!!) sitting on them for 3 hours. The photo above was my parting shot at the end (shot by another photographer I was working with; thanks Morgan!).