The single most important guideline is to make sure the entire family is fully
SLEEVES:
Most clients find that they look better in long sleeves on portraits, as ’no sleeve’ options can draw too much attention to the arms (which leads the eye away from the face).
PATTERNS:
For best results, please avoid logos, large busy patterns, or graphics such as cartoon characters or text on shirts.
Solid colour tops are best for a classic look, as they allow the faces of the family to be the focus. However, if you’re going to use a more loose and casual concept for your colours, and you’d like to use a clothing item with a colour pattern as a base to colour co-ordinate the family around, please keep the following in mind:
- Tight/small stripes or patterns can cause a moire’ effect on camera, which will cause distortion and colour banding in the camera.
- Large patterns like plaid, big checks, or patterns with high colour contrast, can be very distracting and take away from your image.
- Medium-sized prints with a subtle difference between the colours, layered under and colour co-ordinated with other clothing of your small family group, are fine.
CLASSIC / LARGE FAMILY GROUP COLORS:
- For a classic, summery feeling portrait, all-white or solid light blue shirts or dresses look great. When shooting on the beach or out in nature during the summer, these colours provide contrast and clean lines and harmonize with the environment. Avoid wearing tops in flesh tones (cream, beige, peach or yellow) as they will blend your face into your clothes.
- If you’d like a bolder, more colourful look, or if your photoshoot is in the fall or winter, bolder gem tones such as burgundy, wine, teal or turquoise for tops will look great on everyone and will add a splash of colour to your image. Just remember if you’d like to go with strong colours, everyone needs to be wearing shades of the same colour, to make the image co-ordinate!
- A more casual option for a darker but neutral look is to have everyone wearing black tops paired with blue jeans. This is a great look for the fall
season, when the bright leaves are already adding many strong colours to the image.
CASUAL / SINGLE FAMILY GROUP COLORS:
- A casual, colourful and fun option is to choose a single patterned top to colour to co-ordinate around. Then, choose the remainder of the tops in solid colours that pick up the colours in this pattern. This works best for a single-family portrait (if you have multiple family groups in one portrait, it’s better to stick with a single colour and have everyone match).
- Please note that not everyone in the photo should wear patterns, or this would cause your portrait to feel too busy. Kate, a photographer from Boston, does a great job of going in detail on colour co-ordination, on her blog post here.
SWEATERS:
For the cooler seasons, a solid colour sweater worn over a shirt can be wonderful when it fits well (not baggy, and not thin and skin-tight, unless you would like to show off every *single* curve!). Most clients find that solid colour, or tone-on-tone cable knit sweater that worn as a second layer, is a great addition to a photo.
BOTTOMS:
For bottoms, it’s important that everyone wearing pants should be wearing the same length… either everyone should be in shorts and dresses (if that’s your choice for a summer beach shoot), or everyone should be in long pants. My suggestion is that unless there’s a good reason to go with shorts, stay with long pants especially for larger groups, as this allows the eye to focus on faces.
Kahki is a great colour for bottoms for summer-themed shoots. Another alternative is white if we’re shooting on a beach, or if you’d like a more casual feeling, everyone can wear blue jeans.
If your
DRESSES & SKIRTS:
If you’d like to wear a dress, for best results, choose a dress that has sleeves. If you’re going to wear a dress or a skirt (unless we’re going to be shooting on the beach barefoot) please bring high heels.
Legs look the most beautiful and toned when in heels. If you’re wearing heels, please wear nylons (and bring a spare pair in case the first one gets snagged!) It usually works best if you have a pair of comfortable walking shoes along, that you can wear while walking to the photo location. You can then change to heels when we’re ready to shoot.
SHOES
Barefoot is great on the beach! For every other situation, here’s the guide:
- Avoid bright or multi-colour sneakers, or anyone who looks at the photo will look at those feet first, which is distracting from the look you want to create.
- For a more classic/formal portrait, having everyone wearing dress shoes or simple black casual shoes or boots, will best allow the viewer’s eye to focus on your family’s faces.
- For ladies, if you’re wearing high heels with a dress or a skirt, using the accent colour of your shoot in the footwear, is OK for a small family grouping. For larger family groupings, keeping all footwear neutral is ideal.
- For a more fun / colourful portrait session, or if you’re going with jeans and colours on top, you can go with tan leather for the shoes and boots.
SOCKS
Regarding socks, please remember to bring black socks to go with your black shoes for a classic shoot, or natural colour socks for tan shoes. No white socks please, in any situation! Otherwise, everyone that looks at your family portrait, will look first at the ankles. 🙂
The idea is to make sure that your pants are long enough, that your socks do not show a contrasting colour at the ankle – if you’re going to wear summer style pants that are meant to show the ankle, just wear footsies to avoid showing socks.
If you have questions, let us know… you’re welcome to email over photos of some of the outfits or options you’re considering, and we’ll help you choose the best option for the portrait location and season that you’ve chosen.