What to Wear for Your Studio Photography Session

Studio Portrait sessions bring out beautiful colors and crisp details. Every little detail tends to be noticed. They are amazing for capturing the details of your newborn, and the beauty of your little ones. Here is my guide for how to select outfits that will help you feel comfortable yet polished and let your authentic selves shine through.

#1 Classic, Timeless Neutrals

Neutrals are a popular choice for good reason.

They will allow your faces and personalities to take center stage rather than clothing.
They will look timeless and withstand changes in color trends.
They are fairly easy to put together.

When thinking about neutrals you have tints and shades of white, brown, gray, as well as earth tones like muted greens, pinks, and blues.

Here are some examples on Pinterest of neutral outfits to inspire you.

Monochromatic

With neutrals you still have some options of how to approach them. Just like with color you can take a more monochromatic approach and choose one main neutral to vary around. For example, you could take a sage green and just find tints and shades of this same green. Then you’d sprinkle in your white, beige, gray, or blacks. The fewer you sprinkle in the more minimal it feels.

Light-Medium-Dark Contrast

If you want to add more interest though you can choose from a variety of neutrals. One pattern you can try is to have light and dark contrasts. For each outfit, you can choose a light piece and a dark piece. And even add in a medium piece too. Once you add up all these contrasting outfits across family members, they add extra pops of visual contrast while still keeping a minimal look and feel.

Vary your Fabric Textures

Another way to add visual interest is with the textures you choose. This is actually pretty important to keep the look interesting. You can add a variety of knits, velvet, denim, linen, leather, cotton and other fabric choices.

Subtle, Neutral Patterns

You can also choose sutble, neutral patterns to sprinkle in.

Warm and Cool Tones

You can also add interest by blending warm and cool tones. Neutrals can still often be divided into warmer and cooler tones. Does the neutral feel closer to yellow, orange, and red - warm colors or does the neutral feel closer to blue tones - color colors? By choosing some of each you add more layers of interest to your portrait.

#2 Colorful

Colors evoke emotion, joy, and playfulness.

You can choose a single color you love and vary it through everyone’s outfits. Or you can go more complex and bright by choosing a color and its’ complements neighbors.

Here’s a reminder of the different color palettes:

Monochromatic - Choose one color and vary it

Analagous - Choose two colors next to each other on the color wheel, and you can also vary them lighter and darker as well
Complementary - Choose one color you like and find its complement across the color wheel. Those two colors and their lighter tones and darker shades should look great together.
Split-Complementary - Choose on color you like and then find its split complement. The two colors next to its complement on the color wheel. This gives you three colors now, but they should all look lovely together still.

Here are some examples on Pinterest:

Blue Inspiration on Pinterest

More Color Combinations Inspiration on Pinterest

Color Wheel

To see what different shades of your color look like try this color wheel app.

#3 Details Matter

Our eyes will notice every little detail and variance in a studio portrait. You’ll want to skip neon colors, graphics, loud patterns, and any lettering on clothing. Our eyes are just drawn to these. Unless they are THE vibe of the portrait then you want to avoid these. There are exceptions, and I can definitely guide you when we are styling your session.

Here are some examples of other details that may show up - wrinkled fabric, sports watches, stray straps, missed buttons, and hair ties. Jewelry will be noticed, so it would ideally coordinate with your clothing choices. The same goes for shoes. Well-loved shoes will show up like a sore thumb. So if you’d like full length portraits consider your shoes choices wisely too.

#4 Comfort Matters

You’re aiming to look your best, polished version of your family. But, I also want you to remember to stay mostly comfortable. Kids who are feeling miserable won’t really want to take portraits so there’s always that to consider. As much as I would’ve wanted to dress up in formal portraits, my kids just couldn’t tolerate certain textures and clothing.