One of the most common questions professional photographers receive is “What should I wear for my portraits?” Even for our own photos this is a hard decision!
I’m sure you’ve looked at your parents yearbooks and laughed at some of the outfit choices. Think big hair, dramatic eye shadow, ostentatious outfit choices. It is really funny to look at those! Trendiness of any era can tend to dominate what is important about the photos: YOUR KIDS!
This is also why we tend to stay away from props or stylized backgrounds. Those things tend to take the attention away from the kids and are not timeless.
Your school photos will serve as a capsule of your school days for decades to come. I’ve been to several 50 and 90th birthday parties where photo have been used to celebrate the person and the photos were from their school photos! I’m sure you don’t want your kids to look back on their photos are think, “What were my parents thinking making me wear THAT?!” <I definitely had that reaction to some of my photos!>No matter how trendy something is at the time, at some point, we all wonder what we were thinking. My mother curled my bangs VERY poofy for several years…very embarrassing.
A photograph should reflect its subject honestly and timelessly. Your clothes, hair, and accessories should complement, not distract, from you! The most helpful advice for choosing clothing color is to think of the space where you want your photos to live. Choose clothing colors based off of that to have the photos seamlessly fit into that room or style of that space
THINGS TO LEAVE BEHIND
Bright colors (please no neon!)
Distracting Patterns (small pattern are ok!)
Stains
Brand or band names and labels
Character clothing (buh bye Pikachu)
Anything too tight, too baggy, or too short (I tell my kids that this make them seem like people don’t care for them)
Big jewelry
Too much makeup
Showing too much skin
IMPORTANT THINGS TO INCORPORATE
Outfits that reflect what you usually wear
Solid tones and colors
Muted tones and colors
Having 1-3 colors in the outfit at max
Flattering, form-fitting clothing…I’m looking at you “dad' jeans”
Simple, minimal jewelry
Dark socks and footwear (sometimes we do take full body shots)
Just so you know sometimes we will take full body shots of your kids! So plan accordingly if that’s important to you. The great thing about that is that we take a variety of poses and the full body shot is usually last so if you don’t have time to grab cute shoes to complete the outfit don’t sweat it! You have a choice to not purchase that photo.
Something else you need to know is that we always included our custom in house black and white filter as an option for your photos. This can solve some clothing coloring issues if there are any.
These options are more preschool focussed but the same rules apply for elementary, middle, and high school. Just think of these options for your bigger kids…especially that onesie…don’t make your bigger kid wear a onesie :)
Here are some of our favorite photos of kids who’ve dressed perfectly for their photos…
