Heart, Art & Profit: A Family Portrait Blueprint

Jessica Vallia
Track: Successful Studios 

At a Glance

• How to Design a Family Portrait Experience That Sells Itself From first contact to final delivery, you’ll learn how to guide clients through a seamless, emotionally engaging process that builds trust—and leads to bigger sales.
• Posing & Prompting Families for Connection, Not Just Perfection You’ll practice posing foundations that flatter every body type and age, then layer in storytelling prompts that capture real emotion and interaction.
• How to Plan Wardrobe, Color, and Location with Purpose You’ll discover how intentional styling and scene planning help create portraits that feel personal – and are easier to sell as wall art or albums.
• A Blueprint for Pricing, Profit, and Real Sustainability Using your own cost of doing business (CODB), you’ll build a plan for how many clients you need, what you need to earn, and how to price for growth.
• Marketing That Feels Like You – Not a Sales Pitch You’ll develop a custom marketing strategy based on your brand voice, client style, and goals – so you can attract the right clients with clarity and confidence.

Class Description

Heart, Art & Profit is a transformative weeklong course designed for photographers who want to build a meaningful, sustainable family portrait business rooted in emotional storytelling, beautiful artwork, and real profit.

Whether you’re just beginning your portrait journey or ready to refine your client experience and sales model, this course offers a complete blueprint – from artistic foundation to business strategy.

Throughout the week, we’ll explore how to create sessions that are not only polished and professional but also filled with genuine connection.

You’ll learn how to guide your clients from the very first inquiry through a custom-designed portrait experience that leads naturally into higher-value sales. From styling and color theory to posing for storytelling, each step will be broken down in a way that’s clear, actionable, and aligned with YOUR brand, YOUR voice, and YOUR style.

Students will participate in three live sessions – a studio session, an outdoor session (weather permitting), and a fine art portrait with a senior – each followed by editing demos using Lightroom, Photoshop where students not only can watch but also follow along.

We’ll also dive into planning your cost of doing business (CODB), building a pricing structure that actually supports your life, and marketing yourself in a way that feels both strategic and true to your voice. If you’ve been searching for a way to blend creativity with profitability – without compromising who you are or how you serve – this class is for you.

You’ll leave with a client experience you’re proud of, a brand message that connects, and a business plan you can actually follow.

Please bring: your camera, favorite portrait lens, laptop with Lightroom and Photoshop installed, batteries, memory cards, an external drive or cloud backup, and a readiness to grow both creatively and professionally.

• CLASS INTENSITY: Blue
• CLASS BREAKDOWN
  Classroom instruction & demos: 45%
  Hands-on: 35%
  Post-production: 20%
• PREREQUISITES:
  Lighting 3: Confident with additive light and OCF.
  Post-Production 2: Looking for guidance beyond image adjustments. 
  Post-Production 3: Can work with layers, layer masks & understand blend modes.
  Studio Business 3:  In my growth journey.

What do these mean? Learn More