Fusion Education Group provides a unique approach to school. They offer a one-to-one classroom setting which fosters positive relationships between their teachers/mentors and students. The moment you step on a fusion campus, you can tell that they live their mission: to teach, motivate, and love their students.
After working with us on a successful video campaign about two scholarship stories in 2017, Fusion Education Group approached us with a need for still photography to pair with the growth of their website and more specifically to highlight a few of their campuses in the Metropolitan New Jersey area. A major concern was that their previous photography work felt flat, presenting like stock images rather than authentic shots of their schools. What makes Fusion so powerful is that they approach learning differently and it was important that any fusion branded content also captured the essence of who they are.
As a team, we genuinely resonate with Fusions mission to not merely teach but to motivate and love their students. So when we were asked to photograph three separate fusion campuses each with their unique color and life, the result needed to have energy, authenticity, and a cohesive Fusion brand.
Photographing middle and high schoolers can be a tricky task, and while we were creating professional content for a prominent client, our on-set approach was one with a touch of whimsy. If you’ve been on set with our head photographer, Leighanne, you will know that her approach to most things in life is one of stress-free joy, so she was a great fit to drop into the middle of a school day and spend time with the Fusion students. The nature of photographing in a school can be sensitive, so an essential part of working with fusion was making the students feel comfortable with our photographer. Before we even created a call sheet, hammered out the specific class schedule details, or created a shot list, the first item we asked for was that each campus gave their students and teachers plenty of advance notice that there would be a photographer spending the day with them. That way, when Leighanne arrived on campus, there was already a sense of familiarity and comfort.
That forethought indeed lent itself to great results, and while it a little while to warm up to being photographed all day, the students were excited at the idea of representing their school. Many gladly volunteered to be in the shot setups, and more importantly, they felt comfortable being themselves so that we could capture Fusion in its natural state. In the end, we were able to create some beautiful and colorful content for Fusion that is now displayed in various ways on their updated website (and we may have even snuck in a few rounds of Mario Kart during their lunchtime…we all wish our high school had a Wii U set up in the lunchroom). We are genuinely thrilled to have a continued relationship with Fusion Education Group and look forward to creating more content for them.