One of the most common questions every photographer gets is “What should we wear for our pictures?” It can be super frustrating to try and coordinate outfits and pick colors that look good one everyone. Good news for you.. I provide all the dresses for my sessions unless you’re looking for something personal or you need something I don’t carry right now. So instead of worrying over what you’ll wear, you can focus on having fun. But I’ll give you an idea of why I pick what I pick for you or your kids!
What’s your coloring?
The first thing I typically ask a client I haven’t met yet is “What are your kids’ hair and eye colors?” That usually gives me a pretty good idea of what the subject looks like tonally. If your girls are redheads, I know immediately that they’re going to look like poop in pink, red, or yellow, but they’ll look amazing in purple, green or blue. If your redhead has blue eyes, I’ll pick blue over green. On the other hand, if your babies have brown hair and brown eyes, I know they’ll look totally stunning in pink.
Should we wear short or long dresses?
The second thing I’ll ask is “How wiggly is she?” Because I want my kids to have fun. If she’s not having fun, then what are we even doing there? So I want to know how much this kid moves. If she literally dances through life and skips everywhere she goes, then I’m going to give her a short dress instead of a long ballgown. Why? Because a long heavy gown is going to weigh her down and make it hard to move, or she’ll try it anyway and fall on her face. I don’t have a ‘busted face’ photoshop setting. If she’s a quiet little lady who loves to pretend she’s a princess, then a short gown isn’t going to meet her dreams for her and she’ll be sad if I put her in anything but the biggest of ballgowns.
Wearing Monochromatic sets
One of my favorite looks is a one-color scheme. Brown on brown with more brown, or plum with lavender and lilac. I think a nice marriage of the same color in different tones and shades puts the focus on the subject’s face instead of on the dress wearing her, you know? I want her to blend a bit, not stick out like a giant sore thumb.
Sister sets
And then there are sisters to plan! I like to either match or monochrome sisters. I can’t deal when one sister is in light blue and the other is in dark purple.. it just doesn’t go together at all! Any art teacher will tell you that light tones come forward and dark ones recede (that’s why ‘black is slimming!’), so the viewer is going to constantly fight to look at one subject while being drawn back to the other over and over, The dresses need to complement, not compete.
I hope that helps you in figuring out the question of ‘what should we wear’ to photo sessions!
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