NH Wedding Photographer | NH Portrait Photographer | Seacoast NH
You booked your family session and you are super excited and nervous all at the same time. You do your research, you prepare, you pick out outfits. Now what? Here is a family photo shoot checklist you can use to help you get everyone ready on the day of your shoot.
Family Photo Shoot Checklist:
1. First coffee. Lots of coffee.
2. Plan ahead, if you have young kids that need naps – plan accordingly. A well rested energized kid is much more cooperative than a tired grumpy kid.
3. Speaking of grumpy, make sure everyone is well fed before the shoot. Whatever it takes. Photographers love to schedule sessions around “golden hour”, 2 hours before sunset. Just so happens that is around dinner time! Plan on an early dinner or supply lots of snacks!
4. Dress everyone as last second as possible. You know why. đ
5. Relax. Have fun! It will come across in the photos. You can’t control everything, especially your kids’ moods. Worst case, you have to reschedule, and in my years of experience with family sessions that has only needed to happen ONCE!
Let the photographer worry about lighting and posing and smiles! You are not only investing money for photos, but you are paying for an experience. If you are wanting information on how to look your best in photos check out this blog post!
Tip #1: The night before the shoot, make sure the outfits you chose are still clean. (I woke up once the day of my family’s shoot and my husband had worn the shirt the day before without me noticing, BAH!)
Tip #2: Know bribing children (especially young children) doesn’t always work and can sometimes even backfire! Let them know they are going to have FUN! Try not to threaten a punishment for not smiling, that is a sure fire way to give you those fake forced smiles (or none).
I know how taxing family photo sessions can be to prepare for (check out this story of my last family session). I’ve been there. If you are a control freak like me, it can be super stressful! You can rest assure that anything your child throws at me during a session, I have seen! Even still, sometimes those in between moments, the moments when your kids are not cooperating, create the perfect candid photos you end up loving.
