What’s Hot Now In Bar and Bat Mitzvah Photography

Photo coverage for Bar and Bat Mitzvahs have certainly changed a lot over the last several years. For me, it’s all about the dance floor. I’ve had clients tell me that if people are not on the dance floor, then I don’t need to shoot them, because they don’t matter! I get a lot of jobs because I love to dance and am always on the floor dancing with the clients while shooting. It’s all about getting  pictures of people having fun and getting down. And the clients get to see what a great time everyone had at their party.

These days, the Bat Mitzvah girls all want a professional portrait session done before the event, and it’s more of an experience for them than it is about the actual product. Sometimes the planners will use the images in part of the decor, but a lot of times they are just doing it because the girl’s friends have done it, too. Setups can range anywhere from outdoor portraits to full-on white seamless studio shoots.

Of course, I do shoot the typical range of religious and traditional shots, but I’m also asked for more non-temple pictures as well, and this translates into large albums that I can upsell. My books average about 120 pages (and yes, the clients still buy books). The clients are fairly traditional in their expectations, just not their tastes. They want a book for their children because that is what they got when they were Bar or Bat Mitzvahed. Clients actually pull out their own Mitzvah albums from years back and show them to me—they are typically very heavy in the portraits, but not in the candids. Candids are what they want now for their children’s albums.

One huge request I get is for the client (usually the mom) to have images of her with her friends. I get this taken care of during the cocktail hour. I “staff“ the mom like a politician at an event (I let her know about this technique before we do it). She tells me who she needs a photo with, then we go over, take a photo and I walk away for 45 to 90 seconds to take a candid of someone else, while she chats with her guests. Then I walk back, get in the mom’s eye line and if I think it’s OK, I interject and say, “Can I steal her for a second?“ We then move on to the next group and do it again. This gets the pictures with all of her friends covered before the party, and it moves her around the room so she comes off as a good hostess. I do the same thing with the dad and grandparents. The grandparents can be customers for a book, so you want to make sure that what they need is covered as well.

Christian Grattan is a corporate and event photographer with over 15 years of experience in New York City. His clients include Bergdorf Goodman, Gucci, Jean Paul Gaultier, Lancôme and more, and his work has been seen in Fashion Week Daily, Glamour, InStyle, New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, Vogue and WWD.