What to Wear? | Tips on Choosing Clothes for Your Family Photo Session

Coordinate (but don't match!)

It is important to have harmony in your clothes.  It works great if one person in the group – usually the child – wears a pattern and the rest of the group's clothing pulls from that pattern. In this photo, the baby is the star of the show, while the parents pulled their color choices from her patterned dress, keeping their colors solid and simple:

Same idea, except here the mom is wearing a pattern, while the little boy's shirt is solid blue. Note how the blue of the child's shirt is in harmony with the colors of his mom's blouse:

Here, the mom is the "rockstar" with her jacket being the key element. The little girl's neon skirt balances things out – note the color coordination between the mom's pants and the child's skirt:

You Can Never Go Wrong With Solids.

Simple solid colors provide a very safe and successful solution, as seen in these photos:

Staying within the same 2–3 colors for the whole family can be very successful. This family did a great job using a combination of blue, yellow and gray:

A similar idea worked well for this family:

This family chose a brighter, bolder look – while still staying within a 2–color range for the everyone:

Same idea, with yellow and blue:

A very successful combination of turquoise, lime green and pink in this family's outfits. The turquoise helps connect everyone's outfits together:

The same idea in my own family photo. In this case, yellow is the connecting color, while blue and pink provide contrast and create a happy colorful effect:

This family successfully coordinated blue, pink and their in-between, purple:

Don't Wear More than One Busy Pattern:

It's great to have a bright pattern that draws attention but putting two or more different busy patterns in one photo makes it too hard on the eyes. Here, my daughter Natalia is wearing polka dot tights. The rest of her clothes are solid yellow, creating a nice contrast. The blue balloon is adding a bright visual spot while staying within the color scheme of the clothes:

A Few Other Things NOT to do:

-Logos, graphics, characters, labels, and any type of writing on clothes are not recommended for portraits because they take attention away from the subject – the face. We don't want the viewers to first notice the Gap logo instead of the child's smile!
-If your photo session is going to take place in a park you may want to avoid wearing too much green, otherwise you risk blending with the surroundings.
-Please no sneakers unless they are simple and fashionable like Converse.
-No matching outfits for the entire family such as  identical jeans and white shirts... That look is boring and dated. Coordinate the colors and looks but let every person in the photo have their own personality (although it is OKAY for the kids to outshine their parents a little bit  :)