What to Wear For Portraits

A portrait session is always a fun experience. One of the important steps of getting ready is picking your outfit and accessories. Get creative and use these general guidelines to make your final choice:

- you generally want your clothes to be in symphony with the location. If your session is going to be somewhere downtown – dress up, for a session in a park, forest or field try to think of something dreamy and light, for an edgy location a funky provocative look would be perfect;

- I recommend taking at least 2 outfit changes to the portrait session with you – for example, a dressy and a more casual one;

- colorwise try to pick solid colors and add bright splashes to them using accessories, avoid bright white and deep black clothes;

- stay away from outfits with showy logos and brand names, text, images and busy patterns on them;

- try to avoid shiny or glittery clothes;

- pick clothes that fit your body well – both baggy (make you look bigger and shorter) and very tight-fitting clothes (same affect surprisingly!) are not the best options;

- for engagement, family, couples and other portrait sessions that involve more than one person remember that it looks very good when your outfits coordinate. This does not mean they need to be identical, but same color family, same type (all casual or all dressy) is always a very good idea;

- remember that accessories are a big deal. I encourage you to take your time and think of things your would like to be in your pictures – hats, big picture frames, cameras, cowboy boots, for engagement portrait sessions a board or poster with “Thank You” or “Save The Date” on them, antique chairs chairs/couch or any other piece of furniture, letters, photos, flowers, balloons etc. ;

- feel free to bring your pets if you want them in the pictures;

- Ladies, a nice fitting simple dress or a pair of jeans showing off your curves and a top plus some cute shoes or boots are two universal choices that always look good;

leave extreme minis and too much cleavage for some other occasion;

pay attention to your bra straps – you don’t want them showing in the photos;

when picking shoes and opting for high-heeled ones, consider also bringing a pair of flats, that you could wear in between taking pictures (while walking or resting);

for engagement sessions wear just one ring – THE ring, we want to emphasize on it right?! : );

consider bringing some hair clips and bands. Those will be handy in case of windy weather or if you will want to try different hair styles;

- Gentlemen, make sure your jeans are not too baggy and too low-waist;

for the dressier outfit a tie would be great;

pay attention to your socks – it’s best when they have no patterns on them and match the rest of your outfit in color (the color of your jeans/pants in most cases) and in style (finer socks for dress shoes, regular ones for casual shoes) and long enough to cover the area between your shoes and the bottom of your jeans/pants when you are sitting;

sandals plus socks is a big no-no.

And the most important – pick something that fits both your personality and your body type!

If you hesitate as to which outfit is better – contact me and I will gladly help you decide! I love doing that!