Family Portrait Photography

Of all the genres of photography, this is one of the most beautiful ones. Family portrait photography is a major sub-genre of the portrait photography group. It is about capturing loved ones together in a setting that compliments the emotion of the family. As a professional family portrait photographer, you are responsible for helping them pose, and bringing out their beautiful bonds and family stories in a composition that is creative and warm! Family portrait photography is not always as easy as simply getting the family to look at the camera and say cheese!

There is much more to family portrait photography than just that, including camera settings, location, clothing choices, time of day, number of participants, client expectations, cost and delivery format. Read along with us about this wonderful genre to get to learn a few ideas, tips and secrets to successful family portrait photography!

What is family portrait photography?

Family portrait photography is all about capturing a group of people who share a family bond. These could be huge groups of tens of people including joint families and their extended relatives, or you could be dealing with an intimate group of a small but close nuclear family with parents and their children being a part of the family portrait photography session.

Family portrait photography can be specific to one destination or event where the family hires a photographer to take candid shots and capture beautiful memories for the family, or can be part of a studio portrait photography session. Family portrait photography sessions can also be more planned and more formal than candid photography sessions. Whichever one is chosen the resulting photographs should your style as a photographer and they should match your portfolio.

Family portraits and social media

People will commonly look for local family portrait photographers via local social media accounts and web searches. So create a good online portfolio on your website and keep your social media accounts such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram updated with your current work.

How to perform family portrait photography

If you are a new photographer trying to get into this genre, here’s some ideas for you to begin your family portrait photography journey.

Arrange a Pre-meet

Just like all other professional photography photo shoots, you need to also do your homework correctly for family portrait photography, and there is no better homework than meeting your clients before the session. Get to know the family, chat informally with them to understand the kind of bonds they share, their likes and dislikes. Even if you are already friends with the family, a pre-shoot meet-up is necessary to view the family from a photographer’s eye.

Questionnaire

A questionnaire is not necessarily a list of questions you simply print out and hand to the client to complete on their own. It could be a list of questions that you retain and fill out when you speak to the client either over the phone or a your pre-session meeting, or both. By having you retain the questionnaire you can skip over the questions that aren’t relevant to that particular client.

• A questionnaire could include these questions:
  How many family members will be attending the family portrait session?
• Want are the ages of the attendees?
• If children are attending, what are their favourite movies, characters and toys?
• Do you want to include any pets in the session?
• Do you have any specific hobbies that you would like included at the session that we can use as props (guitar, sports gear etc.)?
• What types of portrait locations are you interested in? (beach, field, urban, local park, national park etc.)
• We can suggest clothing choices, but do you have any clothing preferences?
• Have you looked at our website, Facebook or Instagram site and have seen any favourite photos that we could use as a reference?
• Have you head of a mood board, and if so do you have any favourite photos?
• Is there a special look you want to get out of the session such as rustic, retro, bright and airy, subdued tones, bright colours, black and white?
• Have you had professional photographs completed for you in the past?
• Are there any singles, couples or group shots that are important to you?
• Do you plan of having photos printed or digital or both?
• Is there anything else you feel is important for your session that we should know about?

Concepts

If the family is open to experimentation, discuss what concepts you can do with the family. Discuss the requirements of the family from the photo shoot and if they have any specific output in mind. Be very clear in communicating the boundaries of your photography style and come to a mutual understanding of how the final photographs will look. In reference to this you as the photographer should have a portfolio the client can view, and ensure your delivered photos match your portfolio.

Create a mood board

A mood board is an arrangement or grouping of images that reflect the expectations or desires of the client at the family portrait photography session. The arrangement may show posing styles, colour schemes and concepts.

You can create a mood board to give references to how exactly you would want to shoot the family portrait photography session. Similarly, you can also ask the family to create a mood board of the kind of shoot they would want. This will help you both clarify your requirements and outcomes.

Do some research on the kind of group you would be photographing during the session. The number of family members and the kind of poses you would want to shoot and include them on your mood board. Find at least 10-12 good poses that you can try out with the family.

Ideas on family portrait photography

Don’t limit yourself to taking just formal and semi-formal family portraits! You can spice things up with innovative concepts, light moods and a little fun during the shoot! Here are a few ideas to help you bring your family portrait photographs up a gear!

Themed costumes

There are themes that are perfect for costumed portrait sessions such as comics, web series, cartoons, anime, festivals, medieval and so much more! Themed family costumes can turn a regular family session into a wildly popular occasion! The outfits themselves can add so much fun behind the scenes for the family that the actual photographs are bound to come out light and cheerful.

The idea of dressing up in a quirky costume, and the actual process of doing so will indulge the family in some unforgettable core memories. Photographs from a themed costume session are going to be some of the family’s absolute all-time favourites!

Seasonal family portrait photography sessions

Be it Halloween, Easter, or Christmas shooting with some seasonal props and lights will provide for a completely different atmosphere. Plan a number of season-special shoots throughout the year and have them ready a couple of months before the actual event so that you can complete and deliver photos for the client to share during the seasonal event. These photographs can also be used by the family for their seasonal greeting cards or holiday cards.

Fun candid photographs

Some BTS (behind-the-scenes) shots and candid shots during a regular shoot can add a pleasant quality to the session. You can share behind the scenes shots on social media. Clients and potential clients will love them and will appreciate the effort and professionalism that you display in the scenes.

You will need to ask someone to take them for you, and don’t forget to take some BTS video for your TikTok, Facebook and Instagram reels.

Tips for family portrait photography

There are many possibilities to experiment within the genre of family portrait photography. If you are trying this out for the first time, here are a few tips and ideas to help you kick-start your family portrait photography career!

Remember the ages

Take the ages of the family into consideration. For example, if you have elderly people in your client’s family, or if anyone has any medical issues that prevent them from standing for too long, you must plan the shoot accordingly.

Consider the age of younger kids and their attention spans as well. The quicker you can capture a photograph the better when children are included in the session.

Dealing with large groups

If you are dealing with a larger group of family members, you should stand at a slightly higher elevation than where the family would be standing. This will help you capture the entirety of the group.

You should also give a call of 3,2,1 before taking the photograph so that everyone has time to prepare themselves. When photographing larger groups (+20 or more) it can be notoriously difficult to capture everyone looking at the camera or to capture all of them with their eyes open.

Prompts

There are some prompts you can use that will help capture the attention of everyone whether it is a small group or a much larger extended family group. Fun things up a bit by getting everyone in the group to point toward the person that took the longest to get ready. Take the photo, then ask them to point towards the one that doesn’t want to be here at the session!

Taking funny shots like this will help break the ice between you and all of the group members and will help you gain the attention of them all when it comes to asking them to look towards the camera.

Core memories

What better way to use your photography skills than to capture some core memories for loving families? Well now that you have learnt a few of the fundamentals of family portrait photography, it’s your turn to go capture some memories for others!