What should we wear to our portrait session? | Showing Personality | Seattle Portrait Photographer | Evidence of Life Photography

A wise lady once said, "everyone is a nerd about something." Even if you aren't Sheldon Cooper, you probably have something you're passionate about and we'd love to incorporate that into your portrait session. This post is about choosing clothing that reflects your personality. The last what to wear post we did was all about helping you choose a color palette and coordinate clothing for family photos (check it out here). In that post, I chose mostly very simple and classic looks that will photograph well.  Today, I want to share some fun inspiration for showing your personal style and interests in your clothing choices while still choosing items that follow a color scheme that compliments each other. Love comic books? Maybe you want to wear superman socks. Love to read? How about a tee shirt featuring your favorite book cover. Festival goers? Let's dress your little one in a onesie featuring your favorite rock band.... the are so many possibilities! Here are a few examples I threw together based on some of the things that I love...

The Festival Goers...

In the above example notice how I only used a busy floral patter on one person's outfit? While the other parent is dressed in a solid jumper with some fun bright colored shoes that pick up on of the colors in the floral dress. As a Seattle-ite, I just couldn't resist this Jimi Hendrix shirt for the little - notice how the black of the silhouette coordinates with the black jumper and the yellow sleeves compliment the florals? Everything pulls together in a way that is fun and interesting without looking super matchy-matchy. I think these outfits would look really rad in an urban park setting. :) 

Big Brother is Watching You...

Here I go again picking something I would like.  ;) In the above example, the chevron patter on the dress is subtle enough to work as a neutral and the camel colored sweater coordinates with the writing on the Orwell tee which I SO need to get for my hubby! (Big Brother is watching you!)  Notice that all the parent pieces are very neutral gray, tan and creamy yellow tones while the baby onesie in light blue becomes the star of the photo because of the way it contrasts from the other colors. And aren't the rain drops so cute?! I would love this combinations of outfits for a downtown Seattle waterfront session or maybe the Olympic Sculpture Park. Can't you just see the photo with the Great Wheel in the background?

I Have More Books Than Friends...

Yay for more literary themes. Here we have a spotlight piece on mom with that adorable skirt covered in postcards with a more neutral pattern on top. We balance this by putting the Hemingway tee on top for her partner. Why? Because if they both had lots of detail on top or all the detail on bottom, it would look more like the patterns were competing instead of complimenting each other. Because we've already got so much going on with the parent outfits, the kiddo clothes are very understated here. Oh. And that "this is what a feminist looks like" onesie is killing me right now! I love it so much. I would totally love to shoot this family out in front of the modern architecture of our downtown public library followed by some photos sitting around a little cafe patio table sipping cofee and hot cocoa for the little ones. Or even a classic Seattle rain shoot, with the family under an umbrella.

Verse, Verse, Chorus, Bridge...

And now for the musical family... isn't the guitar print on that dress adorable? And it ties together the colors of everyone else's outfits. All that's missing is the guitar. I'm totally picturing this session as sunset photos on Alki beach, Golden Gardens, or maybe even their own backyard with everyone gathered around a little fire with a guitar and signing songs. Sound silly and contrived to you? Well you obviously didn't grow up with two parents who BOTH play guitar like we did. Perhaps we didn't all sing around the fire as a family, but we had 3am Led Zeppelin jam sessions. Haha.


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, and Gap. 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.