How to create a natural, unposed family photo shoot

I love talking to the Mums I meet online. I’m so inspired by those who create, not in spite of the Motherload but because of it. Motherhood seems to be a muse for many and I love hearing people’s experiences, as well as sharing the things I’ve learned about photography over the years. Increasingly, I find myself giving advice on tentatively taking on that first photography job. Talking to those making the transition from hobbyist/stay at home mum to budding creative business owner. You ladies are my heroes. I think it’s so brave to step into the arena and build a creative business. To stick that marker in the ground and claim something for yourself, that’s all yours.

I share some of my approach to photography work over in my Instagram stories, but something I get asked about a lot is how to prepare for a family shoot. With this in mind, I thought it would be useful to pop it in a blog post, so here goes.

TIMING

Work out when you want to do your shoot. It sounds obvious but really, this is the thing you need to think about even before confirming the booking. I always suggest 8am to my clients for a family shoot start time. The light is usually nice and soft around this time and on a sunny day, I can expect some nice long shadows. You could argue that Golden Hour at the end of the day might be preferable, but I know that when I’m photographing young children, they’re always going to be at their emotional best at the start of the day. They’ll be less tired and cleaner too!

ADVICE ON WHAT TO EXPECT

Many of my clients find it really useful when I share ideas beforehand on what they might like to wear, bring and do during the session. My suggestions aren’t prescriptive by any means, they just offer a little guidance on making the most of our time together. Below is an infographic I created which I send out to my families, feel free to save this and use it as inspiration for your own family session preparation. It’s worth mentioning that this infographic is more tailored for families with very young children but by changing a couple of the suggestions to something more age appropriate, you’re good to go.

PROMPTING VS POSING

I’ll be honest, I don’t believe that posing families or couples is where my strengths lie. Maybe it’s my introvert personality that holds me back? When it comes to gathering the confidence to tell someone to stand or look a certain way I always fall short, so I like to take a different approach. If you’ve ever felt like this when standing in front of someone with your camera, PROMPTING is your friend. I think it’s good to know where your strengths and weaknesses lie and I know that one of my strengths lies in observation. I love to watch for the subtle nuances of family life and I feel like I can get there more easily through prompting. 

Prompting takes the focus off you, the photographer. It gives people an opportunity to do something that takes their mind off the fact that they're being photographed. As people become less aware of the camera, they start to relax and as a result, so do I. As an introvert, this helps me do my best work. Kids love being prompted too, although I’m pretty sure they would just call it “play” ;)  

For the photos in this session, with two boys aged 5 &7, I planned to use a variety of prompts including:

Bike races

Chalk drawing the outline of their parents shadows

Can you climb a tree? 

Tickling each other

Bubble blowing 

You’re not allowed to smile!

I also asked some simple questions to help take their mind off the camera:

“Would you rather eat fish ice cream or three worms?”

“You choose, what should I take a photo of you doing?”

“Tell me your best joke”

“Show me your best monster face”

I find these simple lines and prompts really effective for photographing families. With this particular age group, I like to try to encourage movement and silliness, all the while watching for those in between moments where more gentle emotions creep through

LENS CHOICE

The pace of your family session is dictated by you. What I mean by that, is that it’s not the same as shooting an event where you’re at the mercy of other people’s timings. So with the luxury of time during a family session, I like to slow things down in my mind. I try to take the time to really look to see how the light, composition and story are playing out in front of me. Because I have more time to shoot with intention, I tend to favour my prime lenses.  I just love the image quality they produce.  I enjoy the mindful process of working to the strengths and limitations of each lens and if I want to zoom, I just use my feet! 

When I arrive at a shoot, I usually reach for my 85mm 1.8 first. With its longer focal length, I can hang back a little. This suits my mood which I know will be a little bit shy as we begin our session. I can set my subjects on an open-ended task (like walking hand in hand through a forest, for example) as I build my confidence. When I’m feeling warmed up, I’ll switch to my 50mm and come in a bit closer and towards the end of my session, I’ll wade right into the action with my 35mm.

THE HOLY TRINITY

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ve likely seen me talking a lot in my stories about something I like to refer to as the Holy Trinity of good-photo making. Before I press the shutter, I try to run through a visual checklist of three key elements to try to include. These are: Light, Composition & Story.

Light

My first priority is to find and consider the light. Is it good, is it interesting? This is where choosing the time of day carefully can really help. Maybe you love shooting in full midday sun? Or maybe open shade is your preference? I’m not here to tell you what is right or wrong, only that you should be mindful of the light and intentional with how you use it. Finding the light you love to work with is so, so important for your photos. 

I often like to find pockets of light and then wait for something to happen in that light. Light-driven shooting can challenging but really, really fun.

Composition

When you’ve found the light, it’s up to you to decide how you want to compose the image. Move around to explore the angles and look to see what the shapes and lines in front of you are doing. Maybe get in to the habit of asking yourself not, “what should I include in my frame?” but instead, “what should I leave out of my frame?” If something is not adding to your photo, get rid of it!

Story

If there’s nothing interesting happening in front of you, change your viewpoint. When you find something that adds story to your image, it can really help the viewer connect to the humanity of what they're seeing. For some amazing story-telling photography inspiration, I often look at the work of some of my favourite street photographers like Alex Webb, Matt Stuart & Martin Parr. 

I hope you found this helpful, I could chat all day about this kind of stuff so if you want to keep the conversation going, just DM me @suziejaygoldsmith

Suzie x