That question

is….What do I wear?

Now obviously you like to look nice as individuals when you have a family photo session done with me.  But bringing you all together cohesively is the challenging bit.

Let’s consider your investment into your family photo session. 

Not just monetary investment but there is valuable planning time, actual photo session time and more importantly your emotional investment of committing to having a family portrait on the wall that you will treasure for many years to come, heck I’d even go as far to say that it’s a piece of fine art!  I have many clients come back to me after a period of time and say…..”I love walking past our photograph hanging in the family room, it makes me feel good inside and I get that warm fuzzy feeling”.  I know exactly what they mean cause I get the same feeling every time I walk past this in my lounge….

Each of these images measures 500cm square…….I love it!  I really need to update these photos…..ok adding it to the to do list now.

So here are some tips about clothing….

Loud Colours – These tend to photograph harshly and let’s face it (pardon the pun), your face needs to be the centre of attention and bright colours will detract from that.

Narrow Stripes – Narrow stripes will distort in a photo, not a nice look.

Bold Stripes – Bold stripes will make a female look larger than they really are so unless you are pencil thin then try and avoid bold stripes.

Branded clothing – This one is hard for teenage boys to avoid today.  Branded clothing will date your photographs very quickly.  Styles change and logos are updated on a regular basis.  Try and wear just a plain black t-shirt if you don’t have anything else.

Bright/Pastel patterns – try and avoid these for the same reason as loud colours, they detract from the face.

The Wiggles – instead of wanting to be completely different from each other, blending is the key here.  You want to blend as a family and not stand out from each other. 

I always say choose a base, be it denim or black, and add colour to the top half.  Select a base colour like blue for example and dress a couple of family members in that colour and then blend a paler shade or brown even with other family members.

Try and wear long pants rather than shorts, white works in some instances but it does detract from your face once again as it will be brighter in a photograph.

If in doubt and you give up, wear denim jeans and black tops with sleeves, this works every time!

Here’s another really good article from Peter M. Budraitis PHOTOGRAPHY about clothing you might like to read….click here

That about covers it…..any questions re clothing, just give me a call and I can help you out.

Sharon xo