Dance Studio Photos · Costume portrait day & recital night · Early access · 2026

Studio portraits and recital photos parents are proud to buy.

A dance studio’s photo day is its own little production, and it happens twice: a costume portrait day and a recital night. This captures both on a privacy-first pipeline — individual costume portraits, class and troupe groups, the signature poses your dancers are known for, and the stage moments from the show — organized against your class roster so a parent finds only their own dancer. The studio keeps the larger leg of every sale, priced above an enforced floor and split in exact cents. Capture and delivery are built today; the branded store and live payment are early access, and money stays honest-off until the store opens.

Book your studio’s photo day How it works →

Costume day and recital nighttwo shoots on one privacy-first pipeline, organized by class, costume, and stage time

Only your own dancera parent claims their dancer with a code and sees only their own child — a roster lookup, not a face scan

The studio keeps the larger legpriced above a code-enforced floor and split in exact cents; live checkout is early access

Photos are never soldfacial recognition is off by default; a photo is sellable only when permission allows

What a dance studio’s photo day actually is

Two shoots, one season — the costume portrait and the recital night.

A dance studio does not have a picture day the way a school does. It has a costume PORTRAIT day — every class in full costume, individual portraits, group formations, and the poses a studio is known for — and, months later, a RECITAL NIGHT, shot in low light while the show runs and there is exactly one take of each number. The two events are different jobs, and a generic photo folder handles neither well.

This pipeline is built for both. Capture is organized against the class roster and the recital program, tagged by class, costume, and stage time, so the gallery structure is right before proofing. Delivery is mapped per dancer, so a family opens only their own child’s classes and numbers — not a hundred strangers. And the sale is honest: priced above an enforced floor, split in exact cents, with the studio keeping the larger leg. The capture and delivery half is live today; the store and the payment rail are early access, and this page says so plainly.

Book your studio’s photo day What is built

How it works

A dance studio’s photo season in four stages

From roster set-up to the store opening, every stage is described as it is built today, with the early-access holds called out where they exist.

Step 1 · Before the shoot — set up against the class roster

The studio brings its class roster — classes, troupes, costumes, and the recital program — and the pipeline turns it into the structure a photo day needs. A shot list per class captures which poses every dancer should get, so the day runs to a plan. Consent is collected per dancer before a single photo is delivered: a family chooses whether their dancer appears in a shared class gallery, in their own family delivery, in both, or in neither.

Step 2 · Costume portrait day — capture the costumes and the poses

On portrait day the photographer works class by class: individual costume portraits, class and troupe groups, and the signature poses on the shot list. Each capture is tagged to its class, costume, and dancer as it is taken, so the gallery structure is right before proofing. A dancer whose family has not consented to a shared gallery is withheld from it automatically — flagged on the roster before the shoot, not discovered afterward.

Step 3 · Recital night — the stage and the portrait

At the recital the night’s photos are captured against the program — show, number, class, and stage time — and mapped to the dancers in each number. A family opens a gallery pre-filtered to their dancer’s acts, with the stage moment and a posed portrait side by side, and no cross-visibility to other performers. Low light and one-take numbers are the norm, so the delivery is organized to make the right shots easy to find.

Step 4 · After the season — the store opens, the studio earns

A family claims their dancer with a code and reaches the studio’s branded store: costume-day prints, digital sets, and recital keepsakes, each priced above the enforced floor and gated by the dancer’s permission record. The studio keeps the larger leg of every sale, split in exact cents. This is the model of the store — the branded store, outside-lab routing, live checkout, and automatic payouts are early access, and payouts run once the studio connects its own payout account. Money stays honest-off until the store opens.

What is built

Five capabilities — honest about what is live and what is early access

Each capability is labelled plainly: Built means the engine exists and is live today; Early access means the surface is present in the platform but not yet enabled for live use. Money is honest-off across all of it today.

Capture the costumes — portraits, class groups, and the poses families ask for

A costume portrait day is the studio’s first shoot of the season. Individual costume portraits, class and troupe groups, and the signature poses a studio’s dancers are known for — first position, an arabesque line, the whole-class formation — are captured in one organized session against the class roster. Each capture is tagged to the class, the costume, and the dancer it belongs to, so the gallery is structured correctly before a single proof is reviewed — a family looking for their dancer’s jazz costume finds it, instead of scrolling a hundred strangers. A shot list per class means a studio can promise the same set of poses for every dancer and know it was captured, not hoped for. Capture and the roster-tagged organization are built and live today.

Capture & roster-tagged organization built

Only your own dancer — a claim code, not a face scan

A parent claims their dancer with a code the studio hands out, and from that moment they see only the permitted photos of their own child — the class and costume their dancer was in, and nothing of anyone else’s. This is a roster lookup keyed to a claim code, NOT a face scan turned on without permission: facial recognition is off by default, and even then any face template is used only to match that family’s own dancer. A dancer whose family has not consented to a shared gallery does not appear in one. Photos are never sold, and a photo is sellable only when permission allows. The consent-gated claim-by-code delivery is built and live today.

Consent-gated claim-by-code delivery built

Recital night — the stage moment and the posed portrait, delivered to the right family

A recital happens once, in low light, with proud parents in the seats. The night’s photos — the on-stage moment and a posed portrait — are organized against the recital program: show, act or number, class, and stage time, so a family finds their dancer’s number in the second act of the Saturday show without scrolling the whole evening. Roster-mapped delivery ties each set to the dancers in that number, so the gallery a family opens is pre-filtered to the acts their child performed in, with no cross-visibility to other performers. Gallery organization and roster-mapped recital delivery are built and live today; the sibling surface at recital.photos handles a full recital-night program end to end.

Recital-night organization & delivery built

The studio keeps the larger leg — an enforced floor and an exact-cent split

Every print and download is priced above a code-enforced floor, so a sale never dips below cost, and the proceeds are divided with exact-cent precision: the studio keeps the larger leg of every sale, split to the penny with nothing silently coerced into a platform margin. A studio owner sees the projected split per item before any sale is made — the actual amount, not a percentage estimate. The enforced price floor and the split math are built. The live checkout that accepts a parent’s payment and the automatic payout rail are EARLY ACCESS — present in the platform, not enabled for live transactions today. Automatic payouts run once a studio connects its OWN payout account. There is no live payment processing on this page, and no billing.

Price floor & split math built · live checkout early access

A branded store families recognize — early access

The store a family reaches after claiming their dancer carries the studio’s own name and look, not a generic marketplace — costume-day prints, digital sets, and recital keepsakes, each priced by the studio and each gated by the dancer’s permission record. Print and keepsake orders route to an outside print lab and ship to the family; the studio never handles fulfillment. The branded store surface and outside-lab order routing are EARLY ACCESS — named here because they are real, planned parts of the pipeline, not because they are available to buy from today. When the store opens for a studio, it is a deliberate, opt-in step, and money stays honest-off until then.

Branded store & outside-lab routing early access

Built for the people on photo day

The studio owner, the dance parent, and the photographer — each with the part that is theirs

The studio owner

The owner sets the shot list per class, decides the poses every dancer should get, and prices each product above the enforced floor. The projected split shows the studio’s share per item before any sale is made, and the studio keeps the larger leg. Photos and dancer data belong to the studio, not the platform — and the store, when it opens, carries the studio’s own name.

The dance parent

A parent claims their dancer with a code and reaches only their own child’s costume portraits, class groups, and recital numbers. No face scan runs without permission; no other family’s dancer is visible. The costume day and the recital night sit together in one place, so the season is easy to find and easy to be proud of.

The photographer on the day

The photographer works class by class against the roster, tagging each capture to its class, costume, and dancer as it is taken, so proofing starts with the gallery already structured. On recital night the program — show, number, stage time — drives the organization, so the one take of each number lands in the right family’s gallery.

To set up your studio: [email protected].

Dancer data & family consent

Your studio’s photos. Your families’ consent. Owned by you, never sold.

Dancer and family data belongs to the studio, not to the platform, and is never sold to or shared with outside companies or advertisers. Consent is collected per dancer before a single photo is delivered: a family chooses whether their dancer appears in a shared class gallery, in their own family delivery, in both, or in neither — and consent can be withdrawn at any time, which removes the dancer from the active gallery. Galleries of minors are private by default, reached by a claim code, and not indexed by search engines.

Photos are never sold, and a photo is sellable only when permission allows. Facial recognition is off by default; when a parent does opt in, the face template is used only to match that family’s own dancer and is retention-bounded to about 365 days. We say this plainly instead of overclaiming — the honest statement is that recognition is off by default.

What is live and what is early access — plainly

Capture and delivery are built. The store and live payment are early access.

Built and live today: capture organized against the class roster and recital program; gallery organization by class, troupe, costume, and stage time; roster-mapped delivery so a family sees only their own dancer; the consent-gated claim-by-code lookup; the code-enforced price FLOOR; and the exact-cent split math that gives the studio the larger leg.

Early access — present in the platform, not yet enabled for live use: the branded parent STORE surface, the outside-lab print and order routing, the LIVE CHECKOUT that accepts a parent’s payment, and the automatic PAYOUT rail (which runs once a studio connects its OWN payout account). There is no live payment processing on this page, no billing, and no subscription. “Parents buy, the studio earns, the studio keeps the larger leg” describes the model of that future store — it is not a claim that a checkout is settling money today. Money is honest-off, and a conversation is the honest next step.

Connected to the studio platform

The photo day runs here. The studio runs on its software.

Dance Studio Photos handles the photo-day pipeline: capture, consent-gated delivery, the enforced floor, and the split. danceschool.software is the operations platform for the studio itself — enrollment, tuition, and the recital command center that runs the studio day to day. recital.photos is the sibling recital-night photo and video delivery surface, on the same consent-first pipeline. And homeroom.software is the school publishing platform this is built on. Each is a separate product on one privacy-first spine; a studio can use one or several.

danceschool.software recital.photos Read the FAQ

Early access · Studio owners, recital directors, and photographers · See the current state honestly

Book your studio’s photo day

dancestudio.photos is in early access. The capture and delivery pipeline is built and live; the branded store and live payment are being opened up gradually. We do conversations that show the current state honestly: how capture and roster-tagged organization work, how a parent claims only their own dancer, how the enforced floor and exact-cent split are calculated, and exactly what is live versus early access. There is no pricing commitment and no signup. If it looks right for your studio, we discuss what early access looks like.

To book: email [email protected].

FAQ

Common questions

What is a dance studio photo day on this pipeline?

It is two shoots on one privacy-first pipeline: a costume PORTRAIT day — individual costume portraits, class and troupe groups, and the signature poses your dancers are known for — and a RECITAL NIGHT of stage moments and posed portraits. Both are captured against your class roster, organized by class, costume, and stage time, and delivered so a family finds only their own dancer. It is shaped like a recital season, not a generic photo folder.

How does a parent find only their own dancer?

A parent claims their dancer with a code your studio hands out, and from then on they see only the permitted photos of their own child — the classes and costumes their dancer was in. It is a roster lookup keyed to a claim code, not a face scan turned on without permission. Facial recognition is off by default, and even then the face template is used only to match that family’s own dancer. A dancer whose family did not consent to a shared class gallery does not appear in one.

Is checkout or payment live today?

Not yet. The capture pipeline, the roster-tagged organization, the consent-gated claim-by-code delivery, the enforced price floor, and the exact-cent split math are built and live today. The branded store surface, the outside-lab order routing, the live checkout that accepts a parent’s payment, and the automatic payout rail are early access — present in the platform, not enabled for live transactions. There is no live payment processing on this page, no billing, and no subscription. When the store opens for a studio, it is a deliberate, opt-in step.

How does the studio earn, and how big is its share?

Every print and download is priced above a code-enforced floor, so a sale never dips below cost, and the proceeds are split in exact cents with the studio keeping the larger leg. A studio owner sees the projected split per item before any sale is made — the actual amount, not a percentage estimate. This is the model of the future store; the live checkout and the automatic payout rail are early access, and payouts run once the studio connects its own payout account. Nothing here settles money today.

What about recital night specifically?

Recital photos are organized against the program — show, act or number, class, and stage time — and mapped to the dancers in each number, so a family opens a gallery pre-filtered to their dancer’s acts. The stage moment and a posed portrait sit side by side, with no cross-visibility to other performers. The recital-night organization and roster-mapped delivery are built and live today, and the sibling surface at recital.photos runs a full recital-night program end to end.

Are our dancers’ photos ever sold or shared with outside companies?

No. Photos are never sold, and a photo is sellable only when a family’s permission allows. Dancer and family data belongs to the studio, not to the platform, and is never sold to or shared with outside companies or advertisers. Galleries of minors are private by default, reached by a claim code, and not indexed by search engines. Consent is collected before delivery and can be withdrawn at any time; a withdrawal removes the dancer from the active gallery.

Do you use facial recognition to sort the photos?

No, not by default. Photos are delivered by a roster lookup keyed to a claim code, not a face scan. Facial recognition is off by default, and switching it on takes an explicit opt-in for that dancer — an older blanket permission does not carry it. When a parent does opt in, the face template matches only that family’s own dancer, stays on our own private system with no outside recognition service connected to it, and a withdrawal stops the matching at the gate. The retention window — 365 days by default — is what marks that template due for destruction. We describe this plainly rather than overclaim: the step that destroys the template is not finished, and we would rather tell you that than claim a deletion we cannot show you.

What do we need to bring to set this up?

Your class roster — the classes, troupes, costumes, and the recital program — and a shot list of the poses you want every dancer to get. The pipeline turns that into the structure a photo day needs: capture tagged by class and costume, consent collected per dancer, and delivery mapped so a family finds only their own child. If your studio already runs on danceschool.software, the roster and recital structure come across without re-entry.

How is this different from posting the photos in a shared album or on social media?

A shared album or a social post lets anyone who gets the link see every dancer, including the ones whose families did not consent to that exposure, and there is no reliable way to honor an opt-out after the link is out. This pipeline enforces consent before delivery: an unconsented dancer is never placed in a shared gallery, never included in a store product, and never covered by a family share-link. A studio can tell its families it has consent controls in place because the pipeline enforces them, not a person’s memory on a busy recital night.

How do we get started?

By a conversation, not a checkout. dancestudio.photos is in early access: the capture and delivery pipeline is built, and the branded store and live payment are being opened up gradually. A conversation shows the current state honestly — how capture and roster-tagged organization work, how a parent claims only their own dancer, how the enforced floor and exact-cent split are calculated, and exactly what is live versus early access. There is no pricing commitment and no signup. Email [email protected].