What should I wear to my photo session?!
Choosing what to wear to your shoot can be very stressful! We have been there and we are here to help! We have some tips below to help guide you in the right direction to dress yourself and your family. Towards the bottom we have some links of where to shop.
Tips:
- Always keep your session location in mind when choosing your outfits.
- Lay out all the clothes onto a bed, including shoes, socks and stockings. Take a careful look at your collection and where your eye goes. If you are focusing on any specific item you can guarantee this will be the focus in your photograph as well. Clothing should not be too tight or too loose. Taking a picture of your clothes and glancing at the image can help you see where your eye goes as well.
- Prints and logos. Words and logos have a way of out-dating your photos. Words can distract from what’s important! You may even look back and say, “What in the world was I thinking?”.
- Tone down the bright colors. Bright colors tend to attract attention away from the face. Say yes to the neutrals, they always bring the focus back to the people in the photo! Neutrals work for everyone's skin color, gender and age. Blues, blacks, greys, whites, tan, cream, browns and earthy greens. Dark or light, these will make any outfit great. The tough part is choosing which color to go with! If you want a pop of color, choose only ONE person to have ONE garment with ONE pop of color. For example, If dad is wearing a plaid shirt, pull one color from his shirt and have one child wear the pop of color.
Suggestions:
- Coordinate Layers. Try not to match colors, but coordinate the outfits. Choose one person in the family to start with. If there will be kids in the session, start with them. Take colors from the selected person's outfit to dress and layer the rest of the people in the group. Layers are a great way to tie in all the colors. Layering also gives you something to interact with and can change the feel of your photos from one pose to the next. What could be a layer you ask… a vest, scarf, suspenders, collared shirt under a jacket, something textured, a blanket.
- Texture. Memorable outfits have one thing in common, they have depth. Texture can be the weave of the fabric, the density of the cloth or even the placement of a ruffle, lace or pleats. The camera loves textures.
- Your feet. Don’t forget to dress these guys! We know it's an easy thing to overlook, since they are the last thing you put on before leaving the house. Shoes tend to make or break the outfit so choose wisely. Also, think practical, heels may make your outfit look amazing, but not after trotting through the wet, gooey grass. Make sure your outfit is actually wearable in the setting your photos are taking place. Our goal as your photographer is to take unique shots of you and this may mean taking you off the beaten path where there may be uneven ground, climbing over branches, ect., so try to wear clothes you feel comfortable in and will allow you to move around. If you feel uncomfortable at any time please let your photographer know.
Glasses:
It is up to you if you want to wear glasses or not for your photoshoot. If you can’t see without them and don’t have an alternative way of seeing, please wear them! I would recommend kids and the elderly keep them on. We don’t want kids to think there is anything wrong with wearing glasses. Please know that some glare may be inevitable and can not be easily edited out of the way the lens looks.
Things to also consider:
- Transitional lenses- these turn darker (brown or black) when UV light hits the clear lens turning glasses into sunglasses. We are not able to edit these or remove the dark look to them.
- Glasses with purple or green glare- these glasses are extremely tricky. Just know it is very difficult to avoid the purple or green glare showing up in the lens during the session and we may not be able to remove it in post edit.
- Warm tinted glasses- these lenses have a yellow/orange tint to them. Sometimes these can be altered in post edit by desaturating the yellow and orange. In this case you might want to avoid wearing those colors so we don’t desaturate your clothes!
If you have other means of being able to see, (wearing contacts), we would encourage you to consider that option. There is also the option of a hat, which can help protect your eyes from certain light situations and also add an extra element to your photos.
In the end, we want you to be comfortable and stay true to yourself. The last thing we want is for you to regret anything after the fact (you wear glasses, but then see the photo and don’t like seeing the glare/ color or wish you took them off or you don’t wear them, but then you see the photos and feel like it just isn’t you without your glasses).