I know you have lots of great clothing in your child’s closet (and your own) for your portraits, however, you are unsure about exactly what would look best in a portrait. We all know and have seen the basic, standard, boring (and yes my own family has done this as well) – the khaki and white.
My family at Hilton Head Beach, SC. Yes, we have this printed for our wall.
Another option on the standard is using brown shirts with jeans, or brown shirts with khaki pants, or black shirts with jeans. I actually do like black with jeans or brown with jeans for casual outdoor portraits. But entire families matching exactly can seem less natural and more stiff portraiture. If this appeals to you, but you also have a favorite outfit (or two) that you think would work with the standard clothing option, please feel free to ask my opinion!
What I will tell many clients is to pull out all the clothing choices and put them together in such a way that they sort of overlap. Then take a step or two back and look at them. If something stands out, then that is going to stand out in a portrait on the wall and drive you crazy years down the road. I also tell my clients to feel free to take a photo of the clothing choices and send the photo to me and I can help them determine what will look best.
Photo by Beth Valentine of Beth Valentine Photography
Again, this is my own family, not quite so matchy matchy this time. My husband and I are in the standard brown top with jeans, while the kids coordinated. The only thing that stands out in my mind here are the white sleeves on my oldest child. That undershirt was not a planned clothing choice (he was supposed to be only in the short sleeves), but it was 50 degrees and windy the day of our session with Beth. If you notice both my younger son and daughter are in stripes, and my daughter has on Baby Legs with diamonds. The patterns don’t clash because they are separated, use the same colors, and those Baby Legs are a MINOR part of the image. My thinking for the clothing choices was to use the standard of brown and blue, and use as little pattern as possible without being exact matches.
Another idea if you are truly stuck on just starting with ideas, you can take ONE patterned outfit and then choose colors from that outfit. For example, if my daughter were to wear a patterned dress from Gymboree, then from that dress I would use the colors in it for the rest of us. Honestly, there are so many fun companies to purchase clothing from, that you could do this for any one of them. I did that with the following image taken by Michelle Parsley of Kindle the Heart Photography in Woodbury, TN. I started with the girls dresses, then pulled in the browns, the creams/khakis, and oranges. It worked out great for a fall family portrait as it even coordinated with the leaves behind them! The only thing that bugs me now is the pair of jeans my oldest is wearing, I wish I had put him in khakis or dark brown pants. But it’s minor enough that I have still printed this one as well for my home.
If you are only having your child’s portrait taken, then you have much more freedom in choosing what to dress them in. You can choose something traditional and classic, or something more trendy. I will routinely tell clients that are having full session to bring something classic and traditional, then something Mom loves that is trendy, and then if the child is old enough for them to choose their favorite outfit.
If you are in need of ideas of where to shop, I have made a list of my own favorite websites and retail locations. There are literally thousands of GREAT shopping websites and brands of clothing, but I’m only going to link to my own favorites. I will also give you some local shopping boutiques that I love to shop as well.