Since 1998, and still here.
A family business in Wollongong that has photographed roughly forty thousand Illawarra children and has never once had to cancel a photo day.
1998 — a spare room in Gwynneville
Dot and Ray Whitmore started Sunny Days out of the back room of their house with one camera between them and three preschools who'd agreed to give them a go.
Ray had been a press photographer at the local paper for nineteen years. Dot had run a family daycare. Between them they had exactly the right two skills and no idea how to run a business, which took another four years to sort out.
2016 — the second generation
Their daughter Bec took over the business in 2016 after twelve years working in it. Ray still comes to the big school days, officially to help carry gear and actually to tell everyone how it used to be done.
The numbers, since you asked
years trading
centres & schools
photographers
days ever cancelled
What matters to us
Turning up
It sounds like nothing. It is the single most common complaint we hear about other photographers, and it's the reason most of our centres came to us in the first place.
Keeping everything
We have never deleted a photograph. Not one. It costs us money to keep twenty-eight years of files and we consider it non-negotiable.
Being easy to deal with
You email a person and a person emails back, usually the same day. There is no portal, no ticket number and no automated reply.
The safety and paperwork side
All six photographers hold current NSW Working With Children Checks. We check them ourselves every year and send the numbers and expiry dates to your centre in writing before we come out, along with our public liability and professional indemnity certificates.
On the morning we sit down with your nominated supervisor and go through your consent list name by name before we set anything up. If a child's consent isn't clear we don't photograph them, and we sort it out before the catch-up visit.