How to prepare for your outdoor family portrait session

Now you’ve booked your family portrait session, there can be a lot of pressure to make sure it runs smoothly - ensuring children arrive well rested and in a good mood, you’re wearing the right clothes and you all know how to pose in a way that looks candid but flattering. Whilst I encourage a more relaxed, uncontrived approach to your session, there are a few ways you can ensure you get the most out of your family portrait session and make it an enjoyable - not stressful! - experience.

Leading up to the session

1. Choosing the location: I’ll send you information about some favourite locations or let me know about yours! When selecting a location, think about what’s meaningful to your family. Do you love the water? Then by the weir might make sense for you. If you love to look out on beautiful landscapes, then atop Eastern Hill would be perfect.

2. Coordinating your outfits: I have no expectations about how you dress other than you feel comfortable and confident in what you’re wearing - this energy really shines through on camera. If you’d like to achieve a coordinated (but not matchy-matchy) look, you’ll receive a guide when you book that details how to achieve this. Steer clear of logos, slogans and busy patterns to avoid distracting elements in your photos.

3. It’s all in the timing: Generally, we like to shoot at golden hour (the hour before sunset) because the light is beautiful. But if that doesn’t work for your family, we’ll choose another time! Shooting earlier in the day when the sun is higher in the sky can cast more shadows but we choose a location and shoot strategically to compensate. It can also be great to choose a day of the week where kids are at home and have been able to stick to their normally routine (including naps) where possible.

What to pack

1. I encourage you to bring a bag along with you which can house your car keys and phones and any other items.

2. It can be a great idea to pack food (bribes!) for young children and water for everyone. When choosing food to pack, choose something that your kids love and that will be least likely to stain or mark clothing (not that I’m too worried about marks on clothing - keeping it real can be good, too).

3. Other helpful items to bring:

   • a hairbrush for windy days (or when we’re meeting on a hill)

   • sunscreen and mosquito repellent depending on the time of year

   • a bib for young children if we’re stopping for snacks

   • extra layers of clothing for when the sun sets as it can cool down a lot

   • a bottle of water

On the day of the session

1. Don’t worry too much about practising smiles - we’ll keep it candid during the session. Sets kids expectations of what we’ll be doing and speak about it with excitement.

2. Try to keep routines as normal as possible and get nap times in. It’s a great idea to arrive with bellies that have recently been fed (although not too recently that some snacks won’t work their bribery goodness).

During the session

1. Getting the ‘must have’ shots: We’ll start the session by capturing you as a family group so that we can tick that one, very important photo off and then we’ll let the session flow from there.

2. Relax and enjoy yourselves: This is an hour of intentional time for you to connect as a family. The idea is that you’ll walk away having laughed, played and enjoyed your time together. I encourage you to just be yourselves and let me capture that without expectation.

3. Don’t worry about tears: Having your photo taken requires a lot of energy and we’ll be out there for an hour - it’s a long time to focus! - so it’s OK if kids need a moment mid-session. We’ll read their cues (big or small) and they’re more than welcome to take a break.

1. Posing guidance: I’ll give you some guidance to allow you to move into different compositions and then capture the natural interactions that happen from there. I’ve done this many times before and know the tips and tricks to create natural, authentic looking photos - I’ve got you.

After the session

1. The session’s over - you’ll feel happy and tired and the kids will (hopefully) be ready for a good night’s sleep. You might have plans to stop at a special place for dinner on the way home as a big treat for the family.

2. You can expect a handful of sneak peek images within 48 hours of your session so you can look at what we captured.

3. I will send you your proof gallery within two weeks of our session and you’ll have two weeks to select your favourites. If you’ve purchased the full gallery package, you’ll have all images sent to you within this two weeks.

4. Once you’ve selected your favourites, allow me a week to finalise the edit and send you your final gallery where your photos will be ready to love, share and print.

I so look forward to capturing your family just as you are in the great outdoors. The focus is on telling the story of your family’s unique connection. I use my skills and experience to create a really nurturing and fun environment for all of you and love that you’ll walk away with a newfound love for having your family captured.