My 6 top wardrobe tips for my lifestyle photoshoots

I always get asked by my clients what should i wear for their family shoot, or what should their babies wear for their newborn shoot.

So i’ve made a little list of my top tips for how best to dress for one of my photoshoot sessions. This will help your images edit well with my style and look their best.

#1 Muted tones

Avoid bright colours, especially pinks, oranges, blues.

Stick to muted, neutral colours, ie white, cream, beige, brown, blacks. These colours work best with my editing style and will give the best effect on your images.

I have observed dark colours for the parents work quite well, with baby wearing something lighter.

#2 Don’t match, coordinate.

Pick a colour combination for your family to work with. We don’t want everyone to match perfectly, or wear nothing but the same one colour, but we also don’t want everyone wearing completely different colours and patterns.

For example, if your wearing a cream dress, your partner could wear a white top and your baby could wear a cream top with brown dungarees, or muted greens work well with browns and creams.

There are many combinations that work well together, the important thing is to choose colours that dont clash and are not too bright in tone.

#3 Don’t be too seasonal.

It advisable to choose clothes that work for all year round so that your images are more timeless.

No christmas jumpers etc, unless it is one of my seasonal mini shoots like my christmas mini shoots, then christmas jumpers all the way.

But for my family shoots, newborn shoots or maternity shoots, we want to create photos that can be displayed in your home all year round.

#4 Patterns.

Patterns can either work or not. One the one hand solid colours can work best as this will guarantee your outfits are still in fashion years to come - rather than a trend. It can also help to avoid you clashing with your wallpaper, bed linen etc.

However, sometimes patterns can really help the images come to life. As a rule of thumb, if you would like a patterned outfit in the images I would say only one person wearing something pattern, and check that you haven’t already got a lot of patterns going on in your home interior.

- ie. on this image the sheet is patterned, therefore it makes a nice photo only because the baby is not wearing patterned clothes. If she was it would too noisy and wouldn’t make for a good image.

#5 Layers and Fitting

Flowy clothing is good for the girls. Layers, such as cardigans and layered outfits, also work well.

With the guys we want to keep things more fitted. Avoid baggy jeans or over sized shirts/t-shirt’s.

#6 Jeans

Blue jeans are another one that can either work or not. Again it’s highly dependant on the colours of decor, furnishings and the other outfits in the shot.

Personally Im not overly keen on blue jeans as its not the best colour for the style of edit I use. I would say go for black jeans, over blue, if possible.

If there isn’t much colour or patterns going on in the image then jeans can be okay. For example, in the image above, the decor is neutral coloured, there’s no extreme patterns and the rest of their outfit is neutral toned so jeans work okay.

I really hope this helps you with your outfit choice for your family, newborn or maternity photoshoot. If you have any more questions or want to share ideas with me then don’t hesitate to message me.

If you’d like some more information on my baby and family photography sessions in Lancaster please contact me via my contact page.