How to Prepare For Your Family Portraits | Clarksburg, Maryland Family, and Newborn Photography
I get asked a lot about how to prepare for family portraits. Being a father of two rowdy young boys, I understand how difficult it can be to wrangle everyone up, get them in the car, and still have smiles on when you get to your location. I wanted to share a few tips here that will make planning your family’s portrait session much easier!
Planning the time of day
This may seem obvious but it’s sometimes not. You’re in touch with the kids and how they are throughout the day so choosing a time of day when the kiddos are well rested and in good spirits for a family portrait is key. If you know your kids start to get cranky right before having dinner, maybe best to skip the golden hour time slot. If your kids are like mine and comatose in the mornings, then aim for some afternoon slots. We’ll have some advice for you on when the light is the best, we can schedule around your best times to make sure we’re getting everyone at their best! If you have a particular time of day that you know you want to be photographed at, many love the golden hour sun, then it might be a good idea to start prepping the kids early in the week that you’re going to have your photos take on this day at this time, then it’s no big surprise.
Choosing clothes
So this is an important step, but not one to overthink. We love to see family members coordinated but try to avoid looking overmatched in your family portrait. Your clothing choices should help show off and express your and your family’s personalities. If you’re a spunky group, go for bright bold colors. If you’re more into pastel colors, think soft creams, light greys, light blues, and oranges. If this is the look you’re going for we’ll shoot with Fuji 400H film, this tends to push towards the pastel colors and is absolutely stunning! If bolder and spunky is your style, we’ll shoot Kodak Portra which tends to be more contrasty and bold. Have clothes chosen in advance, and have things dry cleaned and ready to go a few days before.
The biggest consideration when choosing clothes is to pick things that you feel amazing in! You should feel super comfy and feel like a million bucks! This is no time to drag out the “I wonder if this still fits” dress or suit. Go with what shows off who you are and makes you feel great!
Get some rest!
Take care to get plenty of rest and drink plenty of water a few days before your session. Coming to the session rested and with plenty of energy will make for some really killer images. If exhausted, you’re going to look exhausted. I know, I know, I hear all the parents right now, RESTED? What does that even mean? Do your best to get everyone to bed early the night before.
Plan something you like to do as a family.
This one can be super fun. Do you all like to play board games together? Bring your faves along with you. Do you all play music together? Bring your guitar! Or whatever instrument you might be able to bring. Having an activity that you all can engage in together is a great way to get some candid moments of your family all engaged with one another.
Don’t be afraid to be spontaneous!
You don’t all have to be staring at the camera the whole time. In fact, we tend to be more documentary-style photographers and prefer not to pose every single shot anyway. You can read more about documentary style here. But don’t be afraid to pick up your little one and set him or her on your shoulders, or toss them up in the air. Just be relaxed and be yourself, do what you would do on any other day and that gives us the ability to capture some really timeless images. We don’t go into our shoots with pose lists. We love catching natural, candid moments. Though we will do some light posing, we then give you space to interact and let us create some beautiful portraits.
We hope these few tips help make your portrait session fun and relaxing! Portraits don’t have to be a drag so let us take the lead and help make your session stress-free!