Imagetek Family Portrait Tips

Choosing Outfits and Preparing Early It’s best to plan your family’s outfits at least a few days in advance of the shoot. We all know how stressful throwing together a coordinated ensemble for dad and the kids can be if it’s done last minute! The prepping process, if done last minute, can spoil everyone’s mood and affect the outcome of your portrait session. Make it stress free by being organized! Having too many colors and or strong patterns that distract from faces can be a risky choice if you are not an expert at this sort of thing. It is best to choose a slightly more anodyne color palette that suits the skin tones and hair colors of most of the members of your family. Don’t be too “matchy matchy”, but add an element of your chosen color palette in everyone’s outfit. When choosing outfits, you also want to keep in mind where the portrait will be taken. If you are going to be doing an outdoor photo shoot in the hot sun, then dress appropriately. You want to make sure that your clothing suits the setting. Make sure that you decide whether you want a casual or a dressier look. Your family portrait will look funny if one member of the family is in a suit while another is in shorts and a T-shirt.

Color Ideas Having trouble deciding on a color theme? Here’s a link to Fall 2023 color trends: Trending Fall / Winter Colors

Make Up The standard rule of thumb for women is to wear a light evening blend of makeup even if your session is during daylight hours.  Avoid overly shiny or frosted lip gloss and make sure the kids and dad are wearing only very light lip balm, just enough to cover chapped lips.

Children and the Group Photo When we are taking the group photo please allow the photographer to try and get the kids attention. The instinct for parents is to try and interact with the kids to be helpful, by telling them to smile or glancing over at them to check to see if they are cooperating. This makes getting everyone looking to the camera simultaneously, with genuine smiles, a real challenge. With children you’ll want to allow the photographer to interact with them and try to get them to look at the camera and smile. This is a hard one for parents. If there’s a particular thing that “works” – a game, a sound, a word, a song, tell the photographer at the beginning of your session together and allow her to try it with your kid/s. The goal of the photographer is to get your kids to look directly into the camera. If you are standing to the photographer’s left or right, even slightly, and shouting your baby’s name to get her to look up, she is going to look AT YOU, not the camera. Don’t prep your child too much for a photo session. Talking about it for days on end (or even all day on the day of the session) only raises the stress level for your child and creates an atmosphere of “you’d better…or else!” It’s better to let your child become comfortable at the session and have their personality shine through.

Most Importantly, Have Fun! Try to have a light and happy heart the day of photos. You’ll want not only the images themselves, but the actual day of photos to stir feelings of nostalgia and happy memories for decades to come. For most a family portrait session is a once in a lifetime event- make it count and make it happy!