5 DIY Family Picture Ideas from a Pro

Professional family portrait photographer Lisa stops by to share tips for crafting better family photos than ever. Whether you’re capturing your kids, partner, grandkids or the whole clan, these family picture ideas can help you get the desired pictures. Take it away, Lisa:

Best Family Picture Ideas

Whether a professional or an amateur, it is never too late to learn a few smart and quick tricks to nail that perfect family photography session. You might be familiar with a few basics, from the camera, poses, lighting, and locations to themes and decorations. But below I’ll show you how to make the session all the better for you and for the family in front of the camera.

Bring Out Their Personalities

Let’s start the family picture ideas with what is perhaps the most important point. You know your family best so bring out what’s special about each one through their poses, lighting, and more. If they know how they want it to be then listen to them and go with it. Any good photographer needs to peep into the personality of their clients to set up the proper poses, themes, style, clothes, and place of the photography. Think of that as you take photos of your own family.

As you grow your photography skills, you will understand which pose to focus on and for whom. Family photography does not only include the entire family in it; it might also include the different poses of mother-father, mother-daughter, father-son, and son-daughter. Understand their needs and also their personalities to plan the shoot accordingly. Think of their personalities so that you know which of their qualities would be great to put the spotlight on!

Keep the Smallest Details in Mind

More family picture ideas! Make sure that the face of every person is clear and that nobody is lost behind another person’s face. There shouldn’t be any shadows on faces either.

As a photographer, you have to very particular with all the details:

• Lights
• Positions
• Camera
• Lens equipment
• Head-space

Choose each of the above elements carefully. Guide your loved ones about the poses that they should make and angles they must stand at for photos they’ll love – and that you’ll adore too!

Slide Family into Easy Transitions

Don’t ask your family to make strict poses or forcibly ask them to act like someone they’re not; doing so would only make the pictures look unreal. Instead, let everybody sit in their best comfortable clothes and allow them to make easy poses in which they are comfortable. Chat with them while you take the photos so that each one of them is comfortable. Then you’re more likely to get candid pictures out of the photography session rather than stiff unbelievable ones. As you talk, you might find they also have great family picture ideas to contribute to the photo session.

Let your family members slide into easy transitions and give them their space to talk, chit chat, laugh, and be themselves. Don’t force your kids into making poses; rather, ask them with whom they want to pose first. A child might want to start by posing with dad, for example. Or maybe the couple wants to pose alone at first and only after that with the entire family.

Family Picture Ideas: Mix it Up!

Monotony is boring! The same old pictures we all have seen one time or the other are too mainstream. Why recreate what’s already been done? Alternatively, break out of the box when photographing your kids and the rest of the family. Look beyond and get ready to capture what is unique! Everybody has something all their own and you can spotlight it now. Ditch what everybody has been doing and make sure that your pictures and you stand out.

About the Writer

Lisa K. Cheney is a professional maternity, family portrait, and newborn photographer who is also a mother to three beautiful kids. She gracefully juggles between the roles of a photographer, mother, wife, and entrepreneur. Life has always been a challenge for working mothers and she has mastered the art of being her own kind of perfect with all the imperfections.