What To Expect From My Family Sessions
My family sessions are laid back and fun. No need to practice smiling, posing, or worry about how your kids will act. I will direct you, and your kids will get to be themselves…and the result will be gorgeous family portraits.
Location and Time of Day
We will discuss location options before your session. If you give me an idea of the type of place you’d like to do photos (urban, park, lakefront, conservatory), I will come up with a couple of specific locations and we can decide from there. We can also do the session at your home to make it easy…this is a good option during winter.
Some of my favorite spots in Chicago are North Ave Beach, Winnemac Park, Lincoln Park South Pond, Catherine Chevalier Woods ,and downtown near the bridges and along the Riverwalk. If it’s cold out, I also love the Garfield Park Conservatory.
In the suburbs there are tons of great locations too…Fort Sheridan in Lake Forest, Gillson Beach in Evanston, Spring Valley Nature Center in Schaumburg, and Cantigny in Wheaton.
As far as time goes, I love golden hour sessions for my family shoots if the weather is nice. This is the hour before sunset when the light is golden and beautiful and it makes for gorgeous photos. If you are doing an outdoor session, I highly recommend doing it at that time.
I also offer some morning time slots, but I avoid shooting mid-day…when the sun is directly overhead, as it results in harsh, unflattering light.
If your session will be a home shoot (indoors), morning sessions are great because the light is usually best.
Your Kids
It’s a good idea to plan your session at a time when your kids will be well rested, so they’re not cranky. If you’re going to be doing a golden hour session, try to have some down time beforehand if your kids won’t nap at that time.
It’s also smart to feed your kids before the session…if they haven’t eaten a meal, just make sure they’ve had a snack. You can also bring dry, clean snacks and drinks with you to the session in case they need a quick break. Snacks can help with getting little ones to cooperate during the session too. And speaking of food….the promise of stopping for ice cream or pizza after the shoot always seems to get kids to cooperate. I’m not telling you to bribe your kids…but if it works, it works!
On that note…PLEASE please please make sure your kids faces are clean before our photo session. Food, boogers, eye crusties, milk/juice mustache, drool, spit up, dirt, etc. will all show up in pictures. Sometimes when I’m taking photos I’m too far to actually see some of that stuff, but later when I edit the photos it all shows up. So please bring wipes and wipe them down beforehand.
Your kids may not be super excited about photos…and that’s ok! If you have young kids, it can help to tell them a friend is going to be taking some pictures, and then pull up my website and show them my picture so they are familiar with me before the session. You can also show them photos on my site of other kids I’ve photographed.
Explain to them what’s going to happen at the session…tell them they may need to listen and sit still for a few shots, or cuddle with you, but they will also get to run, jump, dance, and play a little bit too while I take photos of them.
For tips on how to dress your kids, check out this blog post!
You
You and your partner don’t need to worry about posing, smiling, or what to do with your hands. I will direct you into poses by simply guiding you to “be” together. I will give prompts asking you to snuggle close together, tickle your kids, look at them, or walk/jump/dance together. I will do some shots of you looking at the camera, but most of them will be you looking at your beautiful family and interacting with them.
From experience, when parents are calm and laid back during the session, the kids are too…but when parents are nervous and stressed out, the kids tend to feed off that energy and act out. So come to the session ready to have a good time with your family, and don’t worry about a thing…you will look great!
Here is that link again to check out my blog post on what to wear to your session!