First thing's first..
If your reading this, I bet you are SO excited for your upcoming session but you might be struggling in the outfit department. Well.. I'm here to help! When deciding your outfits, it's extremely important to think about how you WANT your images to look. I recommend everyone I work with to go to Pinterest and look up their upcoming session and pin their favorite images. This way it gives them an idea of how they want their session to look like! Is it colorful, is it plain, is it with floral, is it dark and moody? Your outfits will play a huge role in achieving these specific looks! If you're like me, you will LOVE the soft pastel colors, light shadows, creamy highlights. To help with this look I highly recommend neutral, pastel or light colors - pinks, blues, whites, yellows, greens; and you will want to avoid dark or bold colors - dark red, purple, dark blue, vibrant pink!
What should I wear though?
Let me start by saying, no matter what advice I give you, it's always important you wear what YOU feel best in! If you don't feel your best, you won't look the best. With that being said.. let me dive in! DRESSES! Dresses are some of my favorite (and most popular) pieces of clothing I photograph. They offer tons of variety in poses and look so elegant in your images! They're also one of the easiest clothing to choose that will make you feel great about yourself! When I think of getting dressed up, I think of a dress more than a pair of jeans and a top, so if your looking for images that won't look like your every day attire, dresses are a great way to go! Do any dresses photograph better than some? YES! I know that "midi" dresses are the rave of 2024 but I've never been a huge fan of them.. They're a little awkward to photograph because they're long enough to use for candid or moving but too short for simple standing poses. Another dress I try to avoid photographing are the short, tight "prom like" dresses. Short and tight dresses make it extremely difficult to do a variety of poses simply because your too scared to move too much and it's stuck to you like a magnet so you can't get any candid or moving poses done! My favorite dresses are long or short FLOWY dresses! The flow of dresses can make some beautiful, elegant and illustrative portraits. That's why you see so many long, flowy maternity dresses!
As much as I love dresses, it's also important to have a variety of poses and images in your gallery. So, another good option IS a nice pair of jeans and a blouse! Notice how I said blouse and not shirt? Depending on the vibe your going for, it's better to wear a blouse than a t-shirt or sweater. If your going to get dressed up for portraits, you might as well look fancy doing it! Jeans and a blouse combo is a great way to get poses you can't do in a dress like sitting criss-cross or leaning against something with your foot up, or putting your hands in your back pocket.
Pattern or no pattern??
Patterns can be so cute when styled correctly! For example, floral patterns can make for an elegant look. However some patterns can be distracting or very hard to photograph.. You should try to avoid small tiny patterns as that can cause "swirlies" in the images from the way the camera picks it up! Stripes are okay to photograph but I would prefer vertical over horizontal. Horizontal can sometimes look like the zebra patterns we used to wear in middle school (I'm showing my age here...). If your having a hard time choosing between a pattern or not, it's safe to just go without one!
