What Should We Wear to Our Portrait Session? | Pop Colors & the Extended Family Portrait | Seattle Portrait Photographer | Evidence of Life Photography

Every so often we post a color and styling inspiration for planning your portrait session. These are not intended to promote dressing a certain way. We want to capture and celebrate your personal style while helping you coordinate outfits that will flow together in your photos.

It is possible to take group photos that look cohesive without making everyone wear the same thing.  The more people you have in your photos, the more difficult it can be to coordinate clothing so I want to share some tricks to help you plan. We hope this post will help you find the balance between coordinating your clothing and showing your personality!

Questions to Ask Yourself

What are you using the photos for? Do you want to hang a big print in the living room? Will the colors and setting of your session fit the style and decor of your home? These are all questions to ask yourself when planning what to wear for your session.

Easy Color Palette: Pick two neutrals and a POP color. 

When choosing a color palette for your portraits, the more people you have in the photo, the less color variation you want. The easiest way to pick your palette is to have everyone dress in the neutrals you choose and then choose accessories in your pop color. My favorite neutrals are denim and gray because they photograph really well, but you could also use khaki and white as your neutrals, brown and cream, gray and black, etc. Then choose a color that speaks to you as your pop color. This could be any color of the rainbow.

If you are feeling adventurous, pick two pop colors and use one more sparingly and one more prominently. The pop colors I chose for the sample palettes above are from the Pantone Fashion Color Report for Spring and Summer 2015. I chose to use these colors because they will likely be found in much of the store merchandise for the current season. When it comes to your session, choose colors based on what appeals to you, not necessarily the latest fashion trend. 

For the examples throughout this guide, I chose  denim/navy and gray as my neutrals with yellow for the pop color. As you look at the sample outfits, try to imagine your favorite color in place of the yellow pop color.

Adding Interest with Prints & Texture

One of the reason denim photographs so well is because it has texture. Incorporating clothing items with texture (like chunky knit sweaters or a scarf) add visual interest and depth to your portraits. Patterns also add interest and texture, but choosing too bold a pattern can distract from the overall photo. Choosing more subtle patterns with lovely details helps keep the people as the focus of the portrait rather than the clothing.

 Incorporate Props that are Meaningful to Your Story

This will mean different things to different people. In the maternity session example above, there is a pair of baby booties and an ultrasound picture to help make baby's presence known in the photos. Other examples of meaningful props may include a hand sewn quilt, a piece of heirloom furniture, or a special photo of a family member who is not longer with us. You can also choose a prop that is just something pretty that you like, suits your personality and will add visual interest. In the example below, I included a bouquet of yellow gerbera daisies.

Pulling Together Your Look for the Extended Family

The reason I chose the same color palette for all of the above examples (yes, I did have a reason) is to show how you can make it work for the whole extended family and still work for each family unit. When we offer extended family portrait sessions, it's not just about that big group photo, we also like to get photos of each individual family unit. Taking the approach we outlined in the post will help you create a unified look for both the entire group and individual families, while still having flexibility for each family member to show their own personality in their clothing choices.

I hope you find this post and examples given helpful in planning your session. We have more color and styling inspiration in the What to Wear section of this blog - scroll through! There are many posts!

Interested in booking a session with us? We love sitting down with the families we work with to plan the session of their dreams. Read more about our family sessions on the Evidence of Life Photography  website.

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The clothing items featured in this post are from a variety of retailers, including but not limited to: Etsy, Mod Cloth,  H&M, Old Navy, Gap and Nordstrom. We are in no way affiliated with these companies and were not compensated for featuring their merchandise. Items were chosen solely based on their fit for the overall look and feel of each outfit.