WHAT TO WEAR
It can be difficult to decide on what to wear for your family shoot. You have a vision of what you want your images to look like, but how do you bring it to life?
Firstly, all of this advice is just a guide. There are no rules when it comes to what to wear. But if you are completely stuck, my first piece of advice for family portraits is to stick to the same colour palette, but not matching. Think about your location, the season and your home decor.
Colours that work wonderfully together, especially at a beach location are whites, creams, blues, denims, Peach, Browns and blush. All the colours you find at the beach. It is best to stick to clothing that do not look too busy, stay away from bold graphics, and too many spots or stripes as they will clash. If mum for example has a dress with a bold pattern on it, try and look for the colours in that pattern and dress everyone else choosing the same colour pallet and tones within that dress.
Just like we talked about taking images at the beach, the same rules apply for any location (park, home, rainforest, country, fields of grass, city). If your session has more of a country feel, and the colours you love are tans, yellows, whites and greens that would make for a prefect combination. Your home may have olive greens, and you want to incorporate that theme of colour into your family portraits.
BE YOU
What is your true style? Would you consider your overall family style to be very casual, artsy, bohemian, sophisticated, Chic? Does your family love dressing up? Do your girls love pretty princess dresses or do they prefer comfy overalls to play in? Would your son just die if you made him wear a collared dress shirt? What would you wear as a family if you were going to a nice dinner, or going to a big family reunion. If you were all getting into your favourite special outfits what would it look like? These are the questions you need to all discuss with each other.
As much as a long flowy dress paired with a flower crown photograph beautifully, does this style reflect your personality? If yes go for it, if not, then don’t even go there. You want to look at your images and remember yourselves as you truly are. Maybe you prefer a more simple and elegant casual look. You might be a quirky family with unique style so don’t hide that, embrace it! If your whole family surfs, and you practically live at the beach, then maybe you should all be in your swimwear, board shorts, complete with salty beach hair!! Would you say your family usually wears a relaxed boho style, or you are city slickers at heart! At the end of the day wear clothing that you feel special in, and clothes that make you all feel your best selves. If you have a teenager who has a completely different style to what you want to have in pictures, try to compromise. This session is as much for the kids as it is you. A happy smile is more important than an outfit choice. Let them choose what they like as long as it fits in with your colour scheme. We all know styles can date and go out of fashion, but at the same time it is depicting a period in your lives too, we all look back on photos and laugh at our big hair, or dad’s mullet. (shrugs shoulders) would you want it any other way? I used to tell my clients to keep it simple and classic so your outfits don’t date, but that can be boring!!! Now I just say BE YOU! So if your kid is sporting a mullet (are they really coming back in fashion?) then keep it! Just remind him it will be up on the walls for ever. Get a fresh hair cut if that is what you want to do, get your hair and make up done if you want to spoil yourself and feel your absolute best, but if you hate makeup and never wear it, and feel weird, then skip it! Lets just have fun with this shoot and capture you as YOU!!!
It can be hard to decide what to wear, but the most important thing is that you be true to YOU