family and newborn photography
STYLING GUIDE: IN-HOME
cotswolds & cheltenham photographer claire westaway
you at your best…
This guide is here to help you decide what to wear for your photo session. As you know, my sessions are very natural and unique to you and the clothes you choose should reflect that. you and your family at your very best - but still you!
let’s go…
Styling Advice…
* Try to avoid everyone wearing the same colour or same outfit. Instead, consider choosing one or two colours or a colour palette.
* You can never go wrong with soft, neutral and warm colours. They're timeless, everyone looks good and you won't look back and say "what was I thinking?" You'll see my colour palette board below - this gives you ideas for base colours which are more muted and subtle and then there are a few suggestions for slightly stronger colours to add a little warmth and pop of colour.
* Ditch the socks! A pair of socks will make any outfit look in-balanced in photos and draw your eyes directly to them.
* Remove smart watches - they can look a bit clunky and you can imagine looking back at the photos in the future and only seeing the out-of-date technology rather than the beautiful moment.
Styling advice…
* Avoid overly bold patterns that take away from the people in your photos. That's not to say patterns are a no. Soft florals can add a beautiful feminine touch. If mum wants to wear a floral dress, I just recommend that you don't compete with additional patterns from other people in the photos and keep their clothing more neutral.
* Please avoid logos or character t-shirts with children - they are distracting and will age your photos quickly.
* I highly encourage Mum to choose her outfit first and then build everything else around this to compliment the clothing.
* Keep in mind the style + colours within your home. If you have a bold green wall, your probably don't want to wear green or something that clashes with the colour palette in your home!
* My top tip is to lay clothing options out on the bed so you can see how the outfits look together. This will help you see if colours clash or there are too many patterns etc. You can take photos of these layouts and send them to me for advice if it's helpful!
Let me talk you through it…
These are photos from my own family photo session at home so let me talk you through the choices I made and why they work.
my dress…
I chose my dress before anything else and mainly because I liked it and it made me feel good!
I also knew I wanted to add a bit of colour as our house is quite neutral, whilst still being subtle and soft.
We have pops of green and rusty orange in our house colours and I knew the dress colours would work with that.
As it has a clear pattern, I knew the rest of the clothes for the family would need to be quite plain.
I also knew that the dress would give movement to the shots and create shapes as it draped.
the kids’ clothes…
It was important for the boys’ clothes to have warm tones, particularly as the colours in my dress are quite fresh.
I picked out colours from my dress like the mustard yellow and the rusty pink. Note the difference though between a bright fresh yellow and the warm, rich mustard yellow my son is wearing.
All the colours - rusty pink, mustard yellow, sage green, dark blue - have a similar warm, deep tone so even though there is a lot of colour going on, they work together.
I chose shorts because they are what the boys tend to wear anyway but I think it also looks smart and means they can move easily.
My son on the left is wearing his favourite shirt (he loves a shirt!) and so I wanted to include it because it is personal to him. It does have a clear pattern so we had to be careful with it against the pattern of my dress but note how the colours tie in with the rest of the scheme (the orange of the squids and the tone of the blue) and if it didn’t work we could just take it off quickly and use the white t-shirt underneath.
in summary…
- start with mum’s dress
- lay everything out together so you can check that the colours and patterns work together
- look for warm tones
- think about the colours in your house - if we had strong colours on the wall then I would have focused on more natural colours in our clothes.
- you don’t need to shy away from colour but it needs to all work together
- let me help! Send me photos of your possible outfits and I can advise you on how it’s all looking.