it’s one of the most commonly asked questions, “what should we wear for family portraits?” well, let me walk you through the process I went through last year. this session was for an extended family shoot, primarily 9 cousins. here’s where it all began. first, I found this blanket, and it screamed, “BEACH PORTRAITS” to me. so i set out deciding what we would wear. which leads me to step1) follow your inspiration.
next, I texted my sister in law with a photo of the above color scheme and said, “here’s what we’re wearing.” she responded, “i can work with that.” which is step 2) coordinate, don’t match. this can be a hard skill to master, but the essence is: pick your anchor piece/color and build around it with complimentary colors. here, the blanket served as my anchor, so everyone was in blue tones, and some bought in a pop of pink. my nieces and nephews did the same, and I think you’ll agree the results were splendidly cute!
step 3) have fun and let the kids light up the photos. the beach is a fantastic place to capture children in element. you can see that our posed shots didn’t get all the smiles we were looking for. but, when we let the kids play and have fun (within the framework of the poses we wanted) we got all the great expressions that we see everyday. a perfect preservation of these sweet cousins!
step 4) get those Christmas cards made. i knew we would be using this portraits on our Christmas card, and had the whole design worked out in my mind before the session. my mom had an idea for her card too, but changed it up when she saw these portraits, and I made a design that incorporated them both.
step 5) don’t stress. too often people overthink their family portraits, and stress out. this leads to a frustrating session with one or more family members irritated. I am a certified mediator, but really it would make the whole thing easier if you took a deep breath and had some fun. hire a photographer you can trust to make you look fabulous and capture the vision of your family portraits!