Sometimes you guys ask me who takes all my family photos. Sooooo I thought I would share my secrets with you! This post will be a “written journey” of how we go about capturing our family photos on a typical family “photo shoot” outing. I am going to walk you through a real shoot, AND my favorite tips on how we try our best to stay #instafabulous LOL
These are the same tips I use when I am shooting solo. Just wanted to remind you that you don’t have to have a family to apply these tips! Enjoy!!!
Secret #1- Who the heck takes my photos?? A combination of things.
Option 1- A polite stranger passing by
Option 2- My husband
Option 3- A tripod + a self-timer
I thought this last “shoot” we did in Carlsbad was a perfect opportunity to share my tips and secrets with you all because we actually had a polite stranger, my husband and my trusty tripod all behind the lens. We went to Carlsbad last week, and I knew I wanted to take at least one set of family photos at the beach. To my husband’ frustration… that’s all I knew! LOL. I didn’t have a specific location or a specific pose in mind. I just knew somehow I wanted a photo with beach + Team Mac! So off we went, dressed in primary colors. (If you want to see the YouTube video on how I styled this family photo session you can see that here. Or you can see a previous blog post that I shared on family photo styling tips that is here!)
My husband was super concerned about people being in the background, and I was more concerned that the background was good LOL. So we parked the car, and I spotted a green door just steps from our car! Bam!!! Photo Op number 1!
Secret #2- I have learned that having a super specific shot in mind is too stressful, I just like to dress nice and go with the flow.
I took a test shot to see what the door looked like in my camera, then I took a picture of my kids.
Shortly after, I recruited my husband to take a photo of me and the kids… and like clockwork up came a friendly passerby who asked “Do you want a picture together?” Of course I would! LOL
TIP- Whenever a stranger takes my photo I give them two directions… 1) “Can you capture our entire bodies?” and 2) “Can you take several photos in a row? It’s hard to get all 4 kids smiling at the same time.” Then I hit him with my best million-dollar smile and a quick giggle and most people totally get it and happily oblige. LOL
Most of the time this is enough directions to get at least one decent photo, but if all the photos are bad… no worries… I just move on!
Next, my husband got behind the lens again and asked to take a photo of this sign that said beach access. I have to be honest… I didn’t see his vision but suddenly he was bought in! So I obliged! Then I took some photos of him with the kids too!
This time no friendly strangers offered so we moved on.
When we walked downstairs to the beach the kids immediately got all wrinkled and dirty (breathe momma! LOL) And I scanned the area for backgrounds. I loved this house in the background and thought it would give me a good option for multiple looks. So my plan was to take one set of photos with the camera facing away from the ocean and one facing the ocean so I could get two looks in one.
This time I really wanted a good shot so I used my tripod. I sat my family down… framed it just like I wanted it, and used the remote shutter on my phone that connects to my camera. But I have just as often just used my cell phone with a very simple remote. (I have linked one here)
Then I take about 10 photos and take a peak on my phone or my camera… this time it was my camera.
When I was satisfied with how those came out. I let my kids play a bit then framed my husband in a 2nd shot, this time facing the ocean.
TIP: If you are new at this choose someplace boring! The kids were a bit hard to keep interested in taking this many photos at the beach, they really just wanted to play in the sand.
TIP: If your kids are distracted just go with it! LOL
I really hoped to take photos at a different spot in another outfit, that I had packed in the car, but my son had to use the bathroom and normally I would just point into the bathroom… I mean the ocean LOL but he was in real clothes, not a swimsuit! Soooo photo session over!!
I did pack literally 5 outfits to take family photos in, but I will just have to use them another time. Generally, my kids love to take photos, and I want to keep it that way, so my “shoots” never last more than 20 minutes and I just let them do whatever they want for the most part!
Let me know in the comments if you like blog posts like this? And also, if you want me to make a video about this the next time I do it?
How do you take your family photos?
