Posing Your Own Family Photos | Boston Lifestyle Photography
Getting ready for your own holiday photos with the family? Here are some tips that might help
Sometimes you don’t want to spring for a professional but you still want to get some great family portraits for a special occasion. You’ve figured out the location and how to get your smart phone to shoot remotely, so the one element missing is how to put all the different pieces of your family together into a whole.
Visualize and Prepare: While you can never quite plan with kids, you can take the time to talk with your family and show them some inspirational photos and practice those poses ahead of time. It will make it a lot easier on the day if everyone has a rough idea of what they’re going to do and you have a plan. Plus you can always improvise and do a silly one after you’ve gotten the safe shots out of the way.
Get Active: Some kids have difficulty cooperating with posing, so consider a family activity that might look good in front of the camera. Maybe it’s kids on the playground together or a parent pushing their child on the swing - a photo that has some action and tells a story will stand out at Christmas.
Vary Your Posing: For more dynamic or editorial posing, you don’t want to just line everyone up - it’s good to place people in various poses. With bigger groups you can also create smaller blocks that build up to a whole - for example if you are having a larger family portrait done maybe you’d have the grandparents in the center and then each of the other families arranged in groups on either side. Also let your environment inspire some different ways to arrange your subjects.
Don’t Be Afraid to Try: Once you have your safe poses, don’t be afraid to try a few different variations or let the kids get really silly. You can always tuck those away as a memory or forget that they happened if a shot looks particularly awkward or something just isn’t working.
What are some of your favorite family portraits? Are there some poses that you’d like to try with your family? What’s the best tip for portrait posing that someone has told you about?
Ryan Richardson is a wedding and engagement photographer serving Boston and beyond; including Cape Cod Weddings, New England Weddings, Massachusetts Weddings and Rhode Island Weddings.