How to dress for a family photo shoot

Family photo shoots are a great way to get beautiful, natural photos of your family and capture precious moments in time before they slip away. I love capturing your family as they truly are, getting to know you all, making sure I capture the true spirit and essence of you all.

But what do you wear to these shoots? These photos are an investment and chance to not only get some beautiful images of you all, but create beautiful pieces of art that you will want to frame, display and proudly show to friends and family. Here are a few tips on how to dress to make the most of your pictures

1. Don't to match too much. If everyone is wearing stripes blue trousers and pink tops it's going to look like something out of the 80's. BUT, do think about wearing complimentary colours and styles and a loose colour theme running throughout. For example, you might have blue as your central colour - dad can wear a blue jacket, son can wear blue jeans, mum can wear a blue dress, baby could wear a blue cardi. Then build neutral colours around this - creams, greys and a complimentary colour like pale pink for example.

2. Avoid bold colours and busy patterns. There are a few reasons for this, firstly bright colours can cast funny colours onto the skin and a flourescent yellow glow is not a good look for anyone. Busy patterns are really distracting in the image, taking attention away from what should be the most important thing in the photo, you! And finally, you don't want these photo to date in a bad way. In a few years time, if you are wearing logos or garish colours you might cringe looking back on these images. Simple, neutral colours don't age and they keep the focus of the photos on you, not on what on you are wearing. Keep fashion trend photos to the i-phone!

3. I'm not going to lie, by far my favourite colours and those that I think really suit my style of photography and editing are muted colours. Think sage greens, creams, greys, dusky pinks and pale blues. These photos should reflect you so if this is a million miles away from the sort of thing you usually wear then we'll discuss it further on the phone and make sure we come up with something that works for both of us.

4. Think about hair and make up. These photos are an investment for you. When you look at these photos I want to recognise how beautiful you look as well as how happy and natural you look. This is the perfect excuse to get your hair done and treat yourself to some new make up - make sure you feel that you look as great as you can - it will really give you confidence when you're in front of the camera.

Here are a couple of mood boards I've put together with the sort of colours and styles of clothes that I think work really well.