This was one of those sessions that tried really hard *not* to happen.
Janette was the winner of a giveaway I hosted over on The Dating Divas blog a few months ago. When we discussed her session over the phone, we immediately hit it off. She had such a great vision in mind for her family portrait session, and it coordinated well with the type of portraits I love to capture – a bit of a vintage flair but with lots of focus on the family interacting with one another. And she specifically requested the tent that my awesome hubby constructed for me.
The day of our session dawned bright, clear, and warm (without being too warm or humid). I was about to start packing up the car to get ready for our session when I received a phone call. Her family drove all the way from Charlotte for their session, and since they had a little extra time on their hands, they had decided to go to the park to play before going back to a family member’s house to get ready for the session. Well, her son accidentally ran into a pole, and he hurt his nose pretty badly – it wasn’t something that I could “Photoshop out” of their portraits, even if he had been in the mood to have his portrait taken after spending part of the afternoon at the hospital. I felt so bad for her little man! Luckily, since they were driving so far for their session, we had set aside a second weekend as a rain date, so we bumped her session back a couple of weeks.
The day of the new session arrived, and it was COLD. Not just cold, but windy, too. We decided to proceed with the session, and I’m so glad we did. It took a while for the kiddos to warm up to the camera (sorry, I just had to throw that little pun in there), but once they did, we had so much fun! I provided most of the vintage props, but Janette brought along the gorgeous quilt that coordinated perfectly with their outfits and the apples (she wanted to include apples in the quilt setup because her daughter LOVES to eat apples).
And speaking of coordinating, I ADORE the outfits Janette put together for this session. She started out by choosing a gorgeous patterned dress for her daughter, and then built the rest of her family’s outfits around that. This is exactly what I recommend you do when choosing clothing for your family portraits – start with a statement piece for one family member, and then coordinate the other outfits accordingly.
I’ve decided to start doing something new to help with the “what should we wear for our session” question that many families ask when planning for their portraits (I ask this question too when planning for my own family portraits). The first image I’m sharing from this session has a block of colors next to it, which emphasizes the color palette used for the clothing, and should be able to help when choosing outfits for your next family portrait session.
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