What to Wear: Tips for Looking Your Best in a Professional Photo Session

First, it is important that you are comfortable! If you are in pain because of the 5-inch stiletto shoes you are wearing, you're not going to have a lovely, relaxed smile!

Children especially need to feel comfortable, or they will not be as cooperative as we might like. That Superman cape that they seem to always want to wear may be the perfect

choice. Years from now, you will remember how special that time in their life was.

Basically, simple is best. Large bold colored patterns and neon colors tend to take focus away from the people in the photo and draw your eye toward the print or super bright color. Choose shirts that don’t have words on them (unless you are going for the superhero theme, or we are shooting company profile photos).

Solid single-colored shirts with bottoms that are similar in tone usually look best. Be careful of printed fabrics. You don’t want one person to stand out or have a competition between prints.

Some families like to dress alike or dress the part with a theme. I’ve had a lot of fun taking photos with themes like farming or western cowboys. One of my favorite large extended family portraits has each individual family unit dressed in the same color. That really helps in figuring out which children belong to whom when great-grandma is showing the photo to her friends.

If you would like everyone in a family portrait to dress in a similar color, they don’t need to match perfectly. For instance, different shades of blue look fine together. When choosing a color, you also need to consider where the photo will be taken. Many people like the idea of everyone wearing white shirts and jeans. That can look really nice. But if the photo is to be taken in a large room with white walls, that could be a big problem. If it is outside in front of a red barn, those white shirts may look great! You can also choose colors that complement each other instead of being exactly the same.

It might help to lay the clothes out somewhere to be sure nothing clashes. You may notice that one outfit seems very different from the others. Consider style as well as color. You don’t want your daughter wearing her prom dress and her brother wearing camo pants, or one person wearing dark colors and everyone else wearing lighter colors.

Lips and Nails: If you are someone who enjoys makeup, you may want to have your lipstick or gloss handy for touch-ups. A fresh coat of nail polish in a neutral color that won’t distract or clash with your outfit will help you look polished.

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