Clothing Guide

A Few Ideas on Clothing for a Classic Family Portrait:

The main idea behind creating a classic, beautiful family portrait is to feature the people, specifically their faces.  These tips will help us create that timeless portrait you will be proud to hang and show off to your friends and even pass down from one generation to the next.

• Keep it simple.  Make clothing choices that work together.  Everyone does not need to match, but you should coordinate.
• Keep it simple, point 2.  Solid colors are always best.  Plaids and bold patterns draw attention to the clothing and away from the subject's faces.
• Keep it covered.  Sleeveless tops and shorts make arms and legs the focus of the attention.
• Keep it moderate.  Medium and dark solid colors are always classic looking and help draw the viewer's attention to the subject's faces.  This works both in the studio, where we generally coordinate the background to the clothing, and outdoors, where the background coloring is usually medium and dark earth tones.
• A quick word on white clothing: While this was an extremely popular look in the 80's and 90's, over time it has proven to do a couple of things that detract from the classic look of a great family portrait.  1) White tends to make everyone look 15-20 pounds heavier and washes out faces.  2) From a distance, families dressed in white tend to look like white blobs in classic, well-proportioned wall portraits.  This is why we recommend medium to dark solid colors.  If you still prefer the white look, we will be happy to work with you.  We just believe you should be forewarned about the drawbacks of white.