Dressing For Your Session

One of the most common questions about the portrait session is “What should we wear?” Ultimately, clothing for the photo is your choice. After all, the photos will be hanging in your home and and circulating through your family photo albums! If you’re looking for a little guidance, here’s a few tips to help you decide on your fashion selection.

What to Wear?

The most important thing to remember about clothing is KISS. Keep It Simple and Similar. You and your family are the stars of the show and when we look at your portraits, we want to see your faces and personality. What you don’t want to notice is your clothes.

Simple

Plain, simple clothes are best for a portrait. Bold patterns, stripes, logos, and other decorations can be a distraction. They draw the eye to the clothes instead of to the people in the photo. Also, simpler clothes tend to be a little more classic. Besides drawing the eye away, more complicated apparel can appear dated more quickly than simpler outfits. Today’s sharp threads could be tomorrow’s leisure suit!

Think about your clothes from head to toe. Depending on the pose, everything from socks and shoes to collars could end up in the photo so make sure your shoes are in keeping with the rest of your outfit and that you’re not wearing those socks with the holes in them! For men, if you’re wearing a dark shirt make sure the t-shirt underneath is dark as well. The white triangle of a white t-shirt peaking out from a black shirt is distracting. Likewise, if wearing a light colored shirt, consider a light t-shirt as well. For women, consider your undergarments the same way. Skin tone colored under garments are often the best choice as they won’t be as easily noticed (and much more easily retouched later) if any part of them should be exposed through a sleeve or collar.

Similar

The idea of everyone in the shot being dressed similarly accomplishes a couple of important things. First, like simple clothing, its not distracting and allows the faces to be the real focus points of the photograph. Second, it establishes a common bond among the people in the photo. Wearing the same, or similar colors makes you look like you belong together.

How far you take the similarity is up to you. If you’re making the investment in custom portrait photography, you may consider taking the extra step of buying everyone the same color shirt. A more relaxed approach would be to simply choose colors in the same tonal range.

Finally, avoid a mismatch in formality. If mom and the kids are wearing t-shirts and blue jeans, the photo will look pretty funny with dad in a suit and tie!