I think the number one question clients ask me is 'what should we wear'. The answer is very individual to the family, so I thought I would take you through my thought processes on how to select outfits and how to shop for the missing pieces. For Christmas, my mother in law asked for a wallet sized picture of her five grandsons. So my mission was to create some beautiful images of all of them, and individual ones, so that I could make up a small brag book for her handbag.
The first thing I wanted to think of was what will I be using the images for? Given it was a brag book, matching colours to decor wasn't going to be important. If you are doing your photoshoot so that you can put artwork on your wall, it's really important to ask yourself what type of images will suit the space. If your decor is loud and colourful, pastels won't be a good match. Neutral spaces are pretty safe, and most colours will be fine, but you might want to think about a splash of colour. You can also pay attention to the environment you want to shoot in. Personally, I adore beach photography, so I wanted to take the boys to the beach. I knew I would be shooting in the golden hour, and so the colours would be soft and light and airy. This formed the basis of my colour palette.
For boys, I love the gentleman look. I love linens, and button up shirts. I never recommend matching outfits, as they tend to look like 'uniforms'. You want to select pieces that compliment one another and are representative of each individual. I went through their wardrobes looking for pieces to match my vision. I also asked my sister in law to bring around what she had for her little one. We laid them all out on the dining table and discussed what we liked about all the pieces. We took photos, so we would know what we had and what we needed and we did a little inventory for each boy. I will attach a couple of pictures. They are just iPhone shots, but it will give you an idea of what we were aiming for.
Sometimes, I will create colour boards, mood boards or pinterest boards for clients, particularly for extended family sessions. For this shoot, I had the following vision for the colours:
We then went off to the shops to find the missing pieces. We were heading to H&M as they have beautiful pieces that are very affordable. (I am not sponsored by them!) Luckily, we found everything we wanted in a relatively short period of time. We took over the shop, laying out all of the clothes beside each other, working out what we thought would work together. Some were obvious and we kept, others were obvious and we put them back, and a few we couldn't decide on, so we decided to buy extra pieces and return any we didn't want.
We ended up with this clothes rack, ready for our photoshoot.
One last word of warning, as we were about to head out, I realised that I would be shooting at the little one's dinner time - fail! So I fed him some weetbix to fill his belly before we went out. Never have a hungry child at a photoshoot.
When we arrived at Coogee beach, heads turned. These handsome, well dressed men looked so beautiful and were a stark contrast to the sun-drenched beach goers at the end of their Sydney day out at the beach! The following images are some of my favourites from the shoot, and I think you can see how my vision of "linens, button-up shirts, gentlemen and soft, light and airy" came to fruition. I hope this can help you when you are considering what to wear for your family photoshoot.
