3 Quick Tips On Dressing For Your Family Photoshoot

*Note: though the title says “quick”, I very clearly got carried away here.

Let’s get the most important thing out of the way first — the single essential element in a successful shoot is showcasing genuine joy as a family.

You’ll never look at a picture of your family laughing together and think “Man, I wish the kids were wearing plaid”.

Additionally, too much orchestration can detract from the authenticity of an image. It’s unlikely that your family regularly dresses in perfectly matching outfits; as a consequence, getting too matchy-matchy screams this is a staged moment. To be fair, any photoshoot has a degree of staging, but our goal should be to cut through that as best we can.

Let’s get the most important thing out of the way first — the single essential element in a successful shoot is showcasing genuine joy as a family.

Wearing plain, simple clothing is always a safe way to guarantee that the focus is on your smiles, not on your shirts.

If all of you are wearing white but your 3-year-old daughter is in bright red, guess where the focal point of the image will be. On her, of course. If you are celebrating a family member — such as a birth, a milestone, a celebration of life — color is a simple way to ensure they are a focal point.

However, if you want to avoid a single family member standing out, focus on keeping a balance of colors. We’ll explore this more in tip #2 below.

The flip-side of the above color tip is that if everyone is wearing pretty much the same color, then nobody stands out — not in a we’re all equal! — sort of way, but more in a we’re camouflaged way.

Unity in both color and scene is a fascinating and often unrecognized element in film production, and goes a long way in subtly elevating an image. This stuff fascinates me, so to save you from reading a few thousand words on color theory (I’ll save that for when we’re in person), here’s this tip condensed to a sentence:

Pick two or three colors and keep the family in that range. If you’re picking 3 colors, yes sure that the third is a mild neutral like white, cream, or gray.

This family stuck to green, orange, and white as their primary colors.

This image works for a variety of ways. Mostly it’s the authenticity of the moment. But if you look closer, you’ll notice that this scene is dominated by variations of only three colors: blue, orange, and white.

Note: The coordinate-don’t-match thing also applies to textures. e.g. don’t all wear plaid. Mix it up.The family in the image below intertwines warm colors with cool colors and plain patterns with plaid. I cover this more in detail in my engagement session outfit tips.

The last tip is really an extension of everything we’ve covered so far. You want to complement your background without blending in to it. If you will be taking pictures in a forest, green and brown risk losing you into the background. The blues worn by the family below ensure they adequately pop from the background.

Whether you are taking pictures indoors or out, consider the colors of your scene. If your family room has a gray couch and dark green walls, wearing gray or dark orange are poor choices. But you should keep those colors in mind — some pops of gray or a lighter green in your outfit could unite the scene.

1. Prioritize simplicity and avoid distracting clothes.
2. Instead of wearing entirely the same color or pattern, work to complement each other with similar shades of a color.
3. Consider the colors of your setting. Keeping your scene to three colors is an easy way to unite the image.