Photographing Family Portraits

FAMILY PORTRAITS

When shooting family portraits it is important to do some pre planning with your prospective model/client to decide on the style of the portrait, the location of the portrait, and therefore the time of day you will shoot the family portrait.

The style of family portrait also determines the clothes that are worn which will give the pictures a certain look and feel. There are so many variations on this theme from very formal attire, like suites and evening dresses, to the very casual family portrait with everyone in their bathers.

The great news is that there are no rules. You can successfully merge formal clothes with informal locations and visa-versa if you choose, or keep all the ingredients of the family portrait unified.

Family Portrait - Formal clothes in an informal location.

The portrait of the girls above was shot using a 70mm lens at 125th of a second with an f-stop of 8 and an ISO of 320.

When you are photographing people it is very important to help them feel at ease, because not too many people feel naturally comfortable in front of a camera. So don’t rush either yourself of your models, take your time and have a good look around your location to select the best spots to shoot the portrait. Have fun and enjoy the experience, chat, laugh and joke with your models and you will all feel better.

One way to help people to feel comfortable is to shoot their family portraits in locations they are familiar with like their home or their farm. The portrait below was shot on the family farm, I love this shot it is such a blokes pic.

Family portrait on the family farm.

Another way of creating a more interesting look to your portraits is to shoot them from different camera angles. A higher camera angle is fantastic and is also the most flattering angle to photograph people from. The portrait below was shot in the family’s front yard and the high angle was perfect for getting rid of distractions that were in the background, and the paving bricks added a great texture to the picture.

Family portrait from a high angle in black and white.

Using props that people love, like cars and motorbikes, can really add something special to their portrait. They also help to structure the portrait by giving people a place to sit or rest on, instead of standing straight up and down. Structure and set up is critical in every portrait and avoiding the old “line-up” type of picture will make your pictures look better instantly.

Use props that are important to your models.

See more examples of family portraits at http://www.lsp.com.au/ andhttp://lloydsmithstudios.wordpress.com/