Whether you have a family session booked with me or someone else this spring, I wanted to share some tips for picking the perfect color scheme and outfits for your session. Figuring out what to wear for family pictures doesn’t have to be stressful or time consuming, let me let you in on a little secret, color palettes!
Maybe you’ve found a color palette that you fell in love with, great! Before you raid your closet or hit the store, here are a few tips to ensure that the color scheme is a good fit, or at least help you narrow your favorites down to the best one for your family.
LOCATION: When selecting color palettes for your family photos, be sure to keep the location of your session in mind. Draw from colors at your location and incorporate them into your outfits. Another option is to do colors that compliment your location. While bright and vibrant colors my look perfect for a downtown urban style session, they may feel a tad out of place nestled in a field of tall wispy grasses. Or, if your setting is full of lush green foliage, wearing lots of red could accidentally leave your portraits looking too “Christmassy”.
YOUR HOME: When you’re thinking about the best color palette for your session, start by looking inside your home. Where do you plan to hang your printed portraits? If your style is soft and muted tones, outfits in the same soft and muted style would be a perfect choice! Decorate in cooler tones? Be sure to dress in cooler tones as well. This definitely isn't a must, but I've personally found that when our own family photographs complement our home decor, I'm much more likely to print and hang them around our house.
SKIN TONES: We all have that favorite color, you know, the one that everyone compliments you in when you wear it. We usually gravitate towards colors that work well with our skin tone without even realizing it. For example, if you have a warmer skin tone, you might gravitate more towards colors like ivory, gold or coral. Maybe you love look #5 below, but the light pink doesn’t look great on your daughter because it washes her out, you could dress her more dominantly in the neutral anchor color. Feel free to make my inspiration images into your own, mix and match as needed to best suit the needs of your family!
PRINTS & PATTERNS: Try to focus more on texture and less on patterns. Smaller patterns tend to photograph better as long as they don’t detract from your faces! And as a general rule of thumb, stick to just one pattern. In my opinion, bold prints, plaids, and super-contrasty stripes are more distracting than complementary. When it comes to patterns, more often than not, less is more!
Now that you have some helpful tips & tricks in your arsenal, below are some family outfit ideas I put together (complete with links for purchasing) to give you some inspiration when choosing what to wear.
I hope you gained some insight and inspiration for your upcoming family session! I am happy to consult on outfits for all of my clients, so if you have been putting off family pictures because it’s just “too stressful,” stress no more! Contact me here to get something scheduled before you talk yourself out of it again!
Look #1
Look #2
Look #3
Look #4
Look #5
Look #6
Look #7
Look #8
Look #9
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