What to wear in Outdoor Family Photos

Deciding on what to wear for your family photos can be challenging!  It can feel overwhelming but if you use these tips I hope to make your life a little easier before our session together.  Here are my Top Tips:

1. Decide on a Color Scheme

Where do you plan to hang your family portrait in your home?  What colours are in that room? If your room is neutral then having a pop of colour works wonderfully.   If you research colour palettes then this will help to spark your creativity.   A site a love is Design Seeds which shows you beautiful and simple colour palettes which you can use to decide a theme that inspires you.

2. Select one patterned piece

This works well for your son or daughter to be in a floral dress or plaid shirt.  This works well as a focus point and then you can plan around this piece. 

3. Colours

Pick 2-3 colours that work together and co-ordinate with white, black, grey or brown which are netural colours. Let your additonal colours pop out!  When choosing final outfits, make sure you split up the colours so not all of one colour are tops or jeans, you can add colours in the accessories and in shoes!  If you have two or three children please avoid them both having the same colours, we don’t want them to look to “overly matched”.

4. Layers & Accessories & Textures

Hats, ties, necklace cardigans, scarfs, tights will add dimension and interest to your outfits. Choose items with interesting textures which add even more interest to your final image.  Be creative!  You may not use all the accessories but bring them along on your shoot so we can try them out.

5. Wear solid coloured clothing (unless its your focal piece) 

Stripes, flowers and patterns will distract in a family portrait if used too much!  Remember what suits your body shape and use dark colours and light colours to accentuate or de-emphasize where needed.

6. Don’t forget to be comfortable!  

Make sure you are comfortable in the clothes you are wearing.  You may have a fabulous idea for what to wear but find the boots hurt your feet or the scarf is making you too hot or you bought those skinny jeans too skinny.  We will be shooting for at least an hour together and you will be standing, sitting, walking and interacting with your kids so please make sure your clothes are comfortable and make you feel awesome.

7.  Characters and Logos

A big no no are logo’s and your kid’s favourite character from TV on their t-shirt.  Just like patterns, these are very distracting in a family portrait.

8. Lay everything out.  

Look at how everything looks together and tweak where necessary.

9. Don’t leave it to the last minute

Once you have booked your session, raid your wardrobes and look into buying a few extra items to finish the outfits.  You don’t need to spend a lot of money especially if you use accessories to add colour.  

Please check out my Pininterest page for some ideas to help you.