Family Shots, Outside - clothing?

jands · Apr 21, 2011

On Sunday I'm doing an outdoor session with a family of 5. It's not paid, I actually asked them just to get practice. My question is about clothing. After looking at some examples, it seems apparent to me the the type of clothes are pre thought-out. Should I be telling the family what to wear? Or at the very least, make suggestions about style/color? I fear I am not experienced enough (or brave enough) to direct a family how they should dress.

I'm just wondering how much of the clothes should be pre-planned, or is it pretty common to adjust the shoot to whatever they happen to be wearing?

For what it's worth, the kids are ages 18months - 6yrs(ish).

MissCream · Apr 21, 2011

I've never told a family how to dress for a shoot. For some reason most people love to wear white matching t-shirts.

Studio7Four · Apr 21, 2011

Since you asked them, and you are doing this for free, think of yourself as the client (whereas usually they would be the clients). And since you are the client, by extension you are also the creative director. In that role it is absolutely appropriate to tell the family what to wear. However...

The relevant question is what do you want to get out of the experience? If you just want to get a handle on dealing with and directing people, what they wear is irrelevant and you can leave it totally up to them. If you just want to practice dealing with outdoor lighting, you may want to suggest that they all wear the same color shirts (unless you like the challenge of exposing for Dad's black t-shirt and Mom's brilliant white button down). If you're going for a shot which you can use in your portfolio you may want to discuss with them exactly what they'll wear - you may get lucky if you leave it up to them, but you may not. As a general rule, if I'm not paying the models then I don't feel like I have the right to dictate the outfit to the degree that they have to go buy something. On the other hand I'm enough of a control freak that I have no problem discussing with them exactly what they already have on hand that can (and will) be used for the shoot. (But that goes to my general philosophy of making sure that all parties are on the same page ahead of time so that we're all happy with the result.)

tirediron · Apr 21, 2011

Regardless of whether you're being paid or not, you want (I assume) to turn in the best possible product. Clothing choices should ALWAYS be discussed with the client(s) beforehand. First, find out what sort of overall style they want. Casual? Formal? Then decide on location. If, for instance the background is going to be very dark/black (say rocks/cliffs/mountains) than having everyone show up in dark blue or black isn't going to work well. Likewise, if it's a park lawn, green may not be the best choice. Suggest (never tell a client) that coordinating outfits of a contrasting colour scheme to that of the background would be appropriate and recommend that everyone where clothing with similar values (That is, you can have everyone where different colour t-shirts as long as one is not very dark and another not very light). Yes, of course you can work around one person in a white shirt and one in a black, but you'll have a better end product if you plan for these things ahead of time.

c.cloudwalker · Apr 21, 2011

tirediron said:
Regardless of whether you're being paid or not, you want (I assume) to turn in the best possible product. Clothing choices should ALWAYS be discussed with the client(s) beforehand. First, find out what sort of overall style they want. Casual? Formal? Then decide on location. If, for instance the background is going to be very dark/black (say rocks/cliffs/mountains) than having everyone show up in dark blue or black isn't going to work well. Likewise, if it's a park lawn, green may not be the best choice. Suggest (never tell a client) that coordinating outfits of a contrasting colour scheme to that of the background would be appropriate and recommend that everyone where clothing with similar values (That is, you can have everyone where different colour t-shirts as long as one is not very dark and another not very light). Yes, of course you can work around one person in a white shirt and one in a black, but you'll have a better end product if you plan for these things ahead of time.

:thumbup:

Suggest is the important word here. Ultimately, the photo is for them and it will be their decision but you sure should give them guidelines along with explaining why. I never did much of this type of portraits but when I did, I always suggested no short sleeves and no shorts unless we were going for a super casual look. Unless they are all wearing white, skin is probably going to be the lightest part of the image and I don't want the attention taken away from the faces by exposing arms and legs.