I’m going to tell you exactly what to wear to your portrait session so you feel confident and look your best. So let’s get started.
At Marcus Anthony Photography, we photograph against hand painted backdrops. They lend themselves very nicely to simple timeless clothing. I’ve put together a few examples below, and I’m going to go over four simple rules.
Rule #1 Stay away from distracting patterns and logos.
Your portraits are meant to showcase the personal connection that you have between your family members. So any sort of distracting clothing is going to take away from that. Stay way from any sort of graphic Ts with crazy big logos on them, or anything that’s way too busy like plaid. Anything like that is going to be distracting in the photographs and will take away from the connection that you have with your family.
Rule #1b (FOR ANIMAL OWNERS) – For ladies with their dogs, posing can be limited since the height difference is so extreme between our furry friends and us humans. We often need to pose you and your dog(s) on the floor, and this involves kneeling or sitting legs folded. Short dresses are a big no-no with this kind of posing, so we STRONGLY suggest wearing jeans, pants, or a longer (below knee) dress.
Rule #2 Coordinate your tones.
You don’t have to do the matchy matchy thing where everyone’s wearing the exact same shirt, but I highly recommend you coordinate your colors. To keep it simple I always suggest choosing either black or white clothing for everyone. Do not mix dark colors with light colors…the people wearing light colors will always stand out and be distracting.
Rule #3 Coordinate your footwear.
Most people in my studio go barefoot because I tend to crop in pretty close on the photos. However, if you insist on wearing shoes make sure everyone’s wearing a similar style. So if mom’s wearing stilettos, make sure the kids aren’t wearing Nike’s. If they don’t have any sort of dress shoes and you only have stilettos, I would say ditch the shoes all together and just go barefoot. Everyone will be more comfortable and it will just look better.
Rule #4 Coordinate your style.
Most people tend to overthink the style of the clothing…and to be honest anything other than the simplest of garments will tend to show the portrait’s age as time goes on. We want to achieve a timeless look so no one comes over to our home in 20 years and makes fun of our dorky outfits that are clearly out of style.
A simple tee or button down for boys and dads and a long sleeve blouse or dress for girls and moms will win every time versus trying to channel your inner Tim Gunn (the guy who hosts Project Runway) and stressing yourself out. Plus you won’t have as hard a time trying to convince your kids to wear something they wouldn’t otherwise be caught dead in.
If you have any questions, just let me know. You can email me at Marcus@MarcusAnthonyPhoto.com. You can call me at 910-444-0162. Or you can go to my website for more information. MarcusAnthonyPhoto.com.
I’ll see you at the shoot!