Making Your Family Photos Pop {Planning Your Family Portrait Session}

Family photos... We all cherish our family pictures, and we want them to be as perfect as possible whenever we update them. If you think about it, there's really a lot of planning that goes into preparing for your family portrait session. Probably one of the most important things to plan would be the outfits that everyone will wear. Today we're going to cover that in this blog post.

There are a lot of clients who are unsure about what to wear for their photo session, and if you're in the same boat, there's nothing wrong with that. There was a time when I didn't know what to wear for family photos either. It's not something that one should automatically know, and there's no shame in asking for advice. If you're looking to hire us or even another photographer, we all are happy to help answer this question for you. We want you to love your photos, and what you wear really does have an impact on the way the pictures look in the end.

The most important thing that you need to know is that your outfits should all coordinate. By coordinate, I mean that you should choose colors for everyone to wear that go together. I usually tell my clients to pick 2-3 colors that work well together. An example would be dark blue, light blue and some shade of green. A quick tip that also helps is that there are neutral colors. This means they are like "cheat" colors that go with anything. These colors are; white, black, gray, and beige. These colors can be used with the 2-3 other colors you choose for your session. The color palette would then be something like this: dark blue, light blue, some shade of green, and gray. Any of the neutral colors can be thrown in without it causing problems with the other colors. Something else to consider would be clothing that has patterns. For example, if mom has a top she really wants to wear that has a pattern, you can simply choose the colors in that pattern as your session colors. If her top has dark blue, light blue, green and gray in it, then dad could wear a light blue shirt with black pants, big sis can wear a green top with dark blue bottoms and little brother can wear a pattern top (with the same colors as mom's top) and black pants. There are ways to work in patterns without them being overwhelming. Wearing all solids works, but it can look boring, especially if you don't use accessories. I would also say to never all plan to wear all the same colors. What I mean by that is, don't decide to have everyone wear white shirts and denim jeans. The reason behind this is that it doesn't make the photos very interesting visually, and you will probably not care for the photos that much. When you choose a few colors as your color palette for your outfits then you pop out in the photos making them interesting and they always look great. Another thing, I like to tell my clients to stay away from shirts that have logos or sayings on them. The eye is naturally taking in all the details in the photo, but will focus on the logo/saying trying to figure out what it says. It takes away from the photo rather than add to it. The subject of the photo should be you and not what is on your shirt.

Another important thing is to use accessories. The accessories you choose should stay within the color palette you chose, and can utilize the neutral colors. However, accessories are meant to spice up an outfit, so make sure you're not using too many neutral colors. Some ideas for accessories that you can wear would be jewelry, scarves, hats (preferably not ball hats), a nice small watch (not a plastic one) and even handbags. These are all things that will add to your session, and make your photos come out fabulous.

Lets do a quick recap:

Do

• Create a color palette of 2-3 coordinating colors. (Notice that this does not say "matching colors".)
• Use a few neutral colors.
• Use accessories.
• Use patterns (the colors in the pattern set the colors for the session).
• If you're unsure about the colors you choose, ask to make sure they work well together.

Don't

• Don't just wear the first thing that you think looks nice out of your or your kids' closet.
• Wear all neutral colors.
• Have everyone wear the same color top and bottoms.
• Forgo the accessories.
• Refrain from wearing shirts with logos or saying on them. (They tend to be distracting and draw the focus onto the logo/saying rather than you the subject.)
• Keep the concerns to yourself about your outfit choices. (Your photographer will want to help you where they can.)

I think that pretty much covers it as brief as possible while still getting the point across. If you find yourself wondering if your outfits will all work, it's always best to ask your photographer. Many will gladly help you decide this. If they don't, then they're not the photographer for you.

I have created an Pinterest board with ideas for how to create outfits that work well for photo sessions. If you're interested in checking it out to see what is there, and to give you some guidance for your next photo session it is a pretty awesome guide. Also, there is a color wheel on there to help you decide which colors coordinate together. :) Here's the link to the board: http://www.pinterest.com/RedstreamDigi/what-to-wear-to-your-photo-session/