5 Things I Wish I Knew Before My First Family Photo Shoot

1. Get to the location before your client.

It helps to walk around and get familiar with the area you'll be shooting in, find a good location, adjust your camera settings, and take some test shots instead of making clients wait for you to get set up.

2. Take a second between shots to check how the photos are coming out.

The first family photo shoot I ever did was for my brother and his family. I began snapping photos and checking to make sure the camera settings were correct for the lighting. A few minutes into the shoot, I didn't change the camera settings when moving from a shady area to a more sunny one and I didn't think to stop and take a look at how the pictures were coming out. I ended up with a handful of usable images and a ton of overexposed, blown out images.

Like this:

3. Don't use the multiple shutter setting.

When I started doing research on family photo shoots, one of the tips I discovered was to turn on the multiple shutter setting to reduce blurriness from hand movements. When you press the shutter button, there's often a little movement from your hand but by the second snap, the camera has steadied. While this is true, I found it way too time consuming and ended up with thousands of pictures to go through, many of them being almost exactly the same.

Like this:

4. Have a helper if you can - especially if there will be children or pets.

It helps to have someone behind you to get the child or pet's attention with something like a toy or treat. It also helps to have someone who can hold a dog's leash or child so you can get a couple pictures of just the adults.

5. Your subjects should not be facing the sun.

I don't know why I had it in my head that the people I was photographing needed to be facing the sun in order to see their faces. I quickly learned this just makes for a whole lot of squinting and harsh shadows.

Like this:

It's better to shoot in a shady area, or have the sun behind your subject.

See the difference?

Hopefully you found these tips helpful and your first family photo shoot will run more smoothly!

Liz