Extended Family Session How-To’s | Boston Portrait Photographer
My May, June, and July have been filled with extended family sessions. Extended family sessions are similar to a traditional family session except they incorporate grandparents, adult siblings and their families, cousins, and others! It’s a new trend lately to ensure a family has beautiful portraits of all the generations and I am totally on board. I wish I had timeless portraits of myself and my grandparents!
Extended family sessions can sometimes be overwhelming to the client planning them. You have to pick a date (and a rain date) that works with 10-20 different schedules, and then start worrying about how to coordinate outfits! Let’s talk about outfits first. How to dress is the single most stressful part to coordinate for most families. It’s difficult to coordinate your own family, never mind worrying about everyone else joining you. I have a few recommended tips to help!
- Choose a main color that has various shades that are easy to find. For example: blue, periwinkle, navy, cobalt, pastel blue. Every family involved in your session should have blue as their main color but ensure that everyone has different shades. You don’t want to match!
- Choose a supporting “accent” color to incorporate in a patterned piece or jewelry.
- Mix in lots of neutrals with your main color: Tans, Creams, Navy, White, Denim.
- Have one person in each family unit wearing a pattern. Don’t have it be all the moms, or all the kids– mix it up!
- When in doubt, check out my pinterest inspiration board for visual examples!
The next most important thing is timing! I talk to all of my individual family clients about the golden hour, but its JUST as important when incorporating all the generations! I know, I know, it’s now three times as many parents saying that the best lighting is past their child’s bedtime, but I truly promise that the kids I photograph past their bedtimes have a blast outside, especially running around with grandma, grandpa, and their cousins!
Extended family sessions are by nature, a bit more posed than my traditional sessions. We typically go into them with a list of “must-have” combinations similar to wedding portraits. Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Sally, and Uncle Joe will all have opinions on what photograph they’d like in their home and we want to ensure that everyone is happy! As we go through our list, don’t be afraid to let your kids run around together and act like….well, kids! Some of my favorite images are the “in-between” moments I capture as we move from group to group.
Lastly, I am a broken record with this one, but try to relax and have fun! There are three times as many grown-ups to help wrangle your kids. More people to stand behind me and act goofy to get a genuine expression out of your serious child. Your awesome siblings to laugh with when your kid runs away or has a meltdown. This is your family and I know you’ll cherish these photographs.
