There’s a lot of advice floating around the Internet regarding family portraits, ranging from don’t do it to hire a professional to all sorts of advice on costuming, lighting, and how to get the kids to behave long enough to get one or two decent shots that can be turned into photos on canvas that are good enough for your walls.
What you don’t see a lot of is the simplest advice you need: How to pose your family.
A family portrait can be casual, of course, but your chances of getting an ideal shot of everyone in a casual, un-posed moment are slim. If it happens, that’s wonderful. If not, you’re going to have to gather everyone for a photo shoot, and if you don’t want your family photos to look like the inserts you get in a new picture frame, use one of these great, fun ideas.
The Abbey Road Pose
Everyone knows the rock band The Beatles, whether you like their music or not, and everyone has seen their iconic album cover for Abbey Road, where they are simply crossing the street outside their recording studio on a bright, sunny day. It’s an easy shot to re-create at almost any street crossing in your neighbourhood. Just get everyone to dress up similarly to the band members (and if you have more than four people in your family, improvise!) and have some fun re-creating this pop culture moment.
The key here is to snap the photo while you’re all walking, so you get the natural stride. If everyone just stands there in a pose it will look stiff – so investing in a tripod and a remote shutter control or getting a friend to snap the photo is essential.
Mid-Air Photos on Canvas
Here’s a super fun idea for your photos on canvas: Buy or borrow a trampoline, have everyone dress up in something summery – all white is fun, but anything loose and casual will work just fine. Then, get up on a ladder with your camera and have each family member take a turn jumping on the trampoline while you capture them in mid-air. Encourage everyone to have fun and get a little crazy (while keeping safety in mind, of course).
Timing is key, so take a lot of photos and let everyone go for a few minutes so you get coverage. The more photos you snap, the better chances that you’ll have a great moment captured when everyone is in mid-air. Then, stitch the photos together in a photo manipulation program and you have an awesome family portrait unlike anyone else’s!
The key to an awesome family portrait isn’t in the clothes or the background or the wide, stiff smiles – it’s in capturing your family’s personality and style. Make that come out in your pose. A shot where the subject is moving naturally will always look better than a static, posed shot, stiff and uncomfortable, and it’s easier to handle little kids that way, too.
When you’ve gotten your family into a pose that no one else has ever used, click here and we’ll turn that photo into an awesome piece of wall art you’ll be excited to show off to everyone who comes into your home.
