A Guide to the Posing of Your Family Portraits

If you’ve never had professional family portraits before or if you want to update your portraits from a few years ago, here is some advice on how to really love your portraits that will be displayed on the walls of your home.

Here is what I will be covering for you

• Get Close
• Have Fun
• Keep it Natural
• Use your Surroundings
• Make Use of Pops

Get Close

If you look at the family portrait on the left there is a cap between the adults. Taking your eyes to the left, Mom and dad both slimmed down simply by getting closer. The secret to creating beautiful, intimate family portraits is to get close. Snuggle up with the people you love if you want the best portraits. If there are people of varying heights in the photo, take a few photos on the same level so that you can get your heads close together too.

Have Fun

Your photos always look more authentic when your family is genuinely having fun and laughing. Spend time talking about your favorite vacation or a memory that makes you all laugh out loud. These candid moments always make for the best photos.

Keep it Natural

When you overthink posing, it takes away from the genuineness of your portraits, which is why it helps to have your sessions in a setting where you’re all comfortable and where you can go about your lives as naturally as possible. Be careful about choosing it too close to the park if your kiddos are just going to want to head over to the gym set. If you’re shooting at home, bake something together or snuggle up for a story. The above portrait is our little one trying to tie her shoelaces. A precious moment caught that we love.

Use Your Surroundings

Use your surroundings to make yourselves more comfortable. Very often, standing upright in the middle of a room or garden will make your photos look and feel stiff. There is the cutest walk here in Sundance Wyoming. We used the walking path and bridge over Sundance Creek. These turned out so well. For other in-home examples, if there’s a wall in the vicinity, lean up against it, or if there is a couch available, pose on that for a few shots. Bring your family into the portraits.

Make Use of Props

If you would like to change things up a bit or give a younger child something to do, you can also always incorporate a few basic props into your photos to get a few non-standard shots.

For other information about location, and scouting read these posts.