Hello! This is the second post in the series Portrait Photography 101. Here’s the first post in this series:

Portrait Photography 101: Part One – How to Pick a Location

Now, getting on with the mandate for this post – you’ve selected your location, next in line is attire. Clothes go a long way in deciding how well your photographs turn out. They will be occupying quite a large portion of the frame and will set the mood and tone of the photographs. That is SUPER important – the tone and colours. This post aims to help you figure the best outfits for your upcoming shoot.

1. Know your basic style/ theme

The first thing to consider is the style/ theme that you’d like to see your pictures in. Do you want your pictures to look casual, and effortless and photographs that capture a slice of life? Would you rather like formal portraits that are classic and timeless? Would you want more of posed, yet natural looking photographs, or more of the candid style photographs?

Aai and Bada Apa Family 4

 

IMG_0995_Edited_lowres

 

2. Pick solids over prints

This is the first piece of info I give clients – please pick solid colours (single colour) over garments with prints. While small prints are okay, larger prints can be distracting and can easily take the focus away from the face. And, if multiple people are wearing many different patterns, that’s not going to be very helpful either! Accent patterns and kistchy elements are always fabulous additions to add some personality to the pictures (like a fun stole or a sweater), but the main garments should be solid colours.

3. How many people are in the shoot?

You’ll need to be colour coordinated, but NOT matchy-matchy with one another. That means, that as a group, you should stick to a coordinated colour palette – pick either warm tones (hues of beige, yellow, green, orange, rust) or cool tones (hues of blue, pink, purple). This is not a hard and fast rule and some warm tones and cool tones blend well in photographs. You’ve just got to check all of yourselves out once before the shoot to make sure everything is going well and nothing is standing out too much or getting subsumed (unless you’re going for that effect – which is also a lot of fun and adds a great deal of fun and freshness to the photographs).

Singh Khurana Family 8

 

Amaira and Shefali 1

4. BYOS – Bring Your Own Style

All that said and done, you’ll value your photographs forever if you see YOU in them. So bring your own style! Feel comfortable. Feel zoned in. You don’t want to be conscious of what you’re wearing – you want to only be focusing on having a great time, and your clothes shouldn’t be getting in your way.

If all of this sounds like a bit too much – worry not. I’m sure your photographer will be helping you out with making these decisions for getting the absolute best results from your shoot! Just go out there and have a great time 😀