One of the questions I’m most often asked by clients is “what do I wear?”  And I’ll be honest, fashion isn’t really my thing.  In fact, I regularly send pictures of myself in dressing rooms to my sisters to ask them if what I’m trying on is cool or not (the answer is often no).  But, I do know what looks good in photographs.  I recently put together a whole PDF about what to wear, and I thought I’d do a blog post about it as well.

Do: Choose something you’re comfortable in.  When I had my family pictures taken by Whimsy Photography Studio (we met up at the beach and did a swap!) I tried coming up with a color scheme first.  But then I couldn’t find anything I was comfortable in.  I admit that I’m difficult to please clothing-wise.  So, I decided to start with my outfit choice first, and build my daughters and husband’s outfits around me.  I found a dress in my sister’s closet that I liked and built our outfits around that.

Do:  Coordinate, but don’t match.  Choose 2-3 colors or patterns that go together and go from there.

This is from Maria’s half of our swap and when I saw her family’s choices a couple days after mine, I was jealous!  I love how she incorporated the colors with everyone.  See how her necklace picks up the blue in her son’s and husband’s shirts, and her daughter has pinks in her dress?  Perfect!

I love how my cousin Christina highlighted turquoise in her outfit and her children’s.  It’s almost not noticeable, but it connects them without looking overly matchy.

Don’t: Wear a lot of white.  A little bit of white or cream in a picture can look nice, but everyone in white, or even several in white can give a glowing appearance.  The eye naturally goes to the brightest part of an image, and you don’t want that to be your clothing.  You want it to be you! On that note, try to avoid very bright colors in general.

Do: Consider the setting.  The clothing choices this family made were perfect for a summer beach shoot.  They’re light and summery!

Think about what the scenery is going to look like.  Are there leaves on the trees?  For fall, are the leaves going to be red?  Yellow?  Brown?  No leaves?  You don’t want to blend in or clash with your surroundings.  I love how the tones in the below pictures go with the settings.

Do: incorporate textures and accessories.  Like everything, moderation is key!  You don’t want to wear a huge necklace, scarf, headband, large earrings, chunky bracelets, etc.  But yes to a cute scarf and headband!