You are considering booking an outdoors family photo shoot or maybe you’ve booked one already. You are getting increasingly excited, yet, as soon as you start thinking about the day, you start panicking:
„But what should we wear?”
Here I am 🙂 Ready to give you some useful advice how to prepare for the day, but don’t worry. I am not going to give you any advice a la Gok Wan or Trinny & Suzannah about what body shape you are, which styles suit your body figure and which you should ditch as soon as you can. You are beautiful the way you are and it is my job to help you pose in a way that excentuates your assets and hides the things that you are less happy about.
If there is anything about your appearance that you feel strongly about and you would like me to be particularly aware of, please let me know in advance in our private communication. On the day there is usually so much happening (changing weather conditions, changing location, light, children running around etc) and some things might escape my attention and I would hate to disapooint you and make you feel that you didn’t look your best.
During our photo shoot I will use all my knowledge and skills to pose you beautifully helping you feel special and beautiful. But there is a fair share of work that you can do yourself, to make sure your photographs are trully eye pleasing and when you look at them later you are happy with the final effect.
Your outfits are there to complement the look.
Remember, that YOU and your loved ones are the most important subjects of the image. Whoever looks at it in the future should have their attention drawn to your eyes, your face and the emotions that are portrayed in the image. That’s why you don’t want anything in the photo that distracts, takes away the attention from you. There are background distractions that I can take care of when posing you or framing the picture but there are other distractions that you may be unconsciously bringing to the photo shoot.
These include:
- harsh patterns on your clothing
- Contrasting colours in your outfit (e.g. dark top, bright bottoms)
- Logos on your clothing
- Colourful jewellery
- Items of clothing that do not match the colour (style) of the other outfits
- Odd footwear (e.g. trainers at a family photo shoot). As long as I haven’t grabbed you during your jogging session, please leave these at home 🙂
Family photography has recently become really popular and more and more people value this type of service. Therefore, you can easily find lots of useful information and examples of clothing sets for family photos online. If you would like to view examples of how people prepare their outfits you can find them for instance here: goo.gl/HJhZdE (search „family photo outfits”)
However, you can easily manage yourself as long as you remember a few vital bits of advice:
- wear solid coloured clothing
- choose muted tones that are a bit subdued
- choose similar tones for your top and bottom (both dark or both light)
- choose between 1 and 3 colours for your group portrait, ones with similar tones that go nicely together For example: dark green, navy, and burgundy – all dark jewel tones, or tan, a lighter olive green, and denims – all lighter, softer tones
- choose long trousers for men/ladies or a skirt below the knee for ladies
- choose dark socks and footwear (unless it’s a barefoot photo on the beach)
- keep jewellery simple and minimalistic
- do your hair the way you’d normally do it while wearing these clothe
You are the subject of the photograph, everything else is just a background.
Obvious, but needed to be said. I work with different props, headbands, wreaths and sometimes bring various bits and bobs to the photo shoot, but again, they are they to complement the look. Not to overwhelm.
If you are coming to a family photo shoot with me any time soon, please do not hesitate to send me a message or show the examples of the clothing that you are considering to wear on the day. I will do my best to advise – whether to add or take out a scarf, whether the dress that you chose will look good in a woodlands photoshoot, which shoes will look better etc. However ultimately it is YOUR photo shoot and your photos should express YOU and your personality, so you can stick to your favourite clothing and choose what you feel best in 🙂 I will take care of the rest.
Below you can view some examples of my beautifylly dressed family photo shoot models so far (just a few of many many beautiful families that I have photographed so far 🙂
