Tips For DIY Family Photos

If you want to capture some memories with your family, you don’t have to book a professional photo shoot. Consider these ideas for a fun do-it-yourself photo session.

Recreate a Classic

Depicting a scene from your favorite movie, staging the moment of a historical photo, or reenacting a famous painting can let your loved ones use their imaginations and get into character. Perhaps you have an old family photo from a location you can revisit with your own crew, or maybe the kids can recreate a fun memory now that they’re older. This is a great opportunity to get out the scrapbook and look around for inspiration.

Lights, Camera, Action

While the standard group photo has a timeless appeal, take some time during your photo session to capture some action shots. If you go out to a park for the shoot, take some candid pictures of your family playing, and if you’re at home, capture a moment when everyone is naturally together, like dinner.

Prep Tips

You don’t have to travel to a scenic setting for the perfect backdrop to your photos. For a solid color background or uniform pattern, you can drape tablecloth behind young children, or position curtains behind your taller subjects. A professional-grade DSLR camera isn’t necessary, either. A modern smartphone has all the clarity and options you need to get the job done with frame-worthy results. Many camera phones even have timers so that no one has to be left out of the shot.  If you happen to have a Polaroid camera handy, you can string a series of photos together for homemade decor.

What to Wear

If you’re going for a formal look, coordinate a dress code so that everyone’s on the same page. Matching colors, a coherent theme, or attire suited to a certain occasion can all establish a time and place for the photo, but remember that matching clothes isn’t essential to a good family photo. The clothing everyone chooses to wear is a visual expression of themselves, and allowing your family to dress in whatever they want will capture who they are at that moment in time, with a hint of what their interests are and how they’re feeling.

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