I get the question: what should I wear for my session” all the time from clients and I never feel like I do a great job of explaining what really would look good clothing wise for their session. It’s difficult to dress 2 people for a session and even more so when you add in the kids too. As a photographer I read lots of blogs and I’m a member of a big online community for photographers. Recently one of the photographers was trying to get ready for her own session and realized that putting together outfits for her whole family was not as easy as she first thought. By reading about it I realized that much more planning goes into clothing than I first thought and I too would have a difficult time dressing a whole family. Lucky for me she wrote a whole blog post about it and gave me permission to use her post. Thank you so much Stephanie Bryan from Stephanie Bryan Photography!!!! You should all check her out and see her beautiful work as well as a picture of the great outfits she picked out for her family pictures. After reading what she wrote and looking at the outfits she picked out I think we all will be able to pick out perfect outfits for our own sessions.

This is what Stephanie Bryan from Stephanie Bryan Photography wrote about what to wear for a session:

I get this question a lot. And until I went to get our own family picture done this year, I really thought that I knew the answer. Trust me, I now know how hard it feels to try and dress a group and look nice and color-coordinated and not matchy matchy. I was lucky enough to receive a tutorial from Andrea Joki of Ajaton Joki so most of this comes from her. Since she was so kind to help me out, I thought that I should pass on the knowledge so hopefully this will help everyone as they are going to pick out outfits for their family sessions this year! I promise your photos will look even better if you follow these fairly simple tips.

First and foremost… Don’t have everyone match exactly! The eye likes variety. This means you don’t just want everyone in a white polo shirt and jeans. Everyone matches but the effect isn’t the most pleasing. Try out all different types of clothing to keep variety: jackets, sweaters, button down shirts, skirts, dresses, jeans, etc…all depending on the weather, of course!

Pick out a color palette and have everyone follow that. You will want to pick 3 colors:

Color 1: Dominant color – pretty much anything except the really dark colors like navy, black, or gray.

Color 2: Neutral color – this should enhance the dominant color – dark blue jeans, beige, black, or navy.

Color 3: Splash color – a bright, vibrant color that stands out from color 1. It should be sprinkled throughout the clothing and adds that pop to the picture.

When picking the colors think about what is going to be in the background at the location you have chosen. Are you going to be at a beach? in a forest? in a garden? The background and environment should determine your color selection. You will want to go with lighter colors at the beach like yellows and light blue because the background is very light and airy. In the fall, the colors on the trees are deep and rich. Deep reds and oranges are good color choices at this time. Even a purple as a splash would look good since it contrasts nicely with the rich yellow and green in the background. In a spring garden, you are going to want to stick with the floral hues. Darker blue jeans are almost universally a great choice for casual, fun family photos.

There are a few items that you don’t want to use to add variety. Not that these items don’t look nice in an everyday setting, but often they don’t look the most flattering in a photo. It is usually best to avoid items that can add bulk like scarves, and hats are kind of a nightmare for the photographer because they cast shadows on your face. You also want to steer away from stripes, but patterns can be added using the rules above and look very nice. Just don’t add too much pattern! Use it sparingly.

Several times before our family photo, I laid out all our clothes so that I could see everything together. Don’t be afraid to do this. It will help you get an idea about how everything works together. Your husband or wife may think you are silly, but I won’t. I promise.

I learn better with examples, so here is exactly how this played out in our family photo this year.

We were getting our photo taken at a park in Portland with quite a few deciduous trees. The trees had started turning so there were the fall yellows, reds, and oranges as well as quite a bit of green still remaining. Keeping that in mind, I choose brown as a dominant color. This included the whole range of browns from a tan to a deep brown. I felt like it was a very complimentary hue to the fall backdrop. I did actually try to stay on the lighter end of the browns just to keep us from looking heavy and dreary in the rich environment though. I choose both denim and black as our neutral mostly, to be honest, because everyone already had black shoes to wear, and I wouldn’t have to buy shoes. And then I choose a rich red as the splash color. Red seemed like the logical choice since it is both a complimentary color to the fall foliage and a contrasting color to the greenery. I probably used more red than would normally be used to just splash the color, but I think it worked out nicely. You can judge for yourselves. Of course, it helps that our photographer, Krissy Allori, is fantastic!

In the bottom of this post is the picture were she shows the outfits she ended up choosing for her family portraits. I think they looked fantastic!!