- Dress yourself first
- Shapes and details
- Location is key
- Pick a palette
- Best family photo color schemes
- Spring and Summer family photo color schemes
- Fall family photo color schemes
- Winter family photo color schemes
Probably any family person has had a family photo taken at least once in their life.
According to statistics, family photography often takes place in warm seasons and most often in summer.
This tendency is common due to the fact that in sunny weather we are entirely more inclined to have fun, and brighter colors in the sun rays bring us even more joy. Such moments literally ask for a photo. Thus, seasons have taken their place in color schemes for photo shoots, which we are going to discuss further.
What is the first thing we think about before any photograph?
Most likely, we think about what to wear to look good in the frame. Unfortunately, things that look great on you in your usual life may not match the frame at all.
Our task is to find a style for you and your family to highlight your features and at the same time have a good color harmony. Color harmony is that feature when colors have a good combination and complement each other in the picture. In this case, you need to take into account not only the clothes but also the place and season of the year, because each season also has its own colors to fit.
Dress yourself first
Let's start with the clothing. Most likely, everything you need is already in your closet. So you don't have to go out and spend a lot of money to get some super-unique outfit for one good shot.
Find an area in your house where you can lay everything out that is not going to compete with the clothes themselves. Usually, you can do it in your bedroom, but you need to make sure that you have some neutral colors there. Whiter tones are preferable. If the surface you lay your clothes on would be darker tint or some maroon, you may think that your clothes have no match, but more likely it is going to be just a bad background to find a match. It is caused by your eyes just tricking you to think that the clothes themselves do not go together when, in reality, it is just a mess-up with a bad bedspread. Hence, don’t forget to stay in check about the background when it comes to choosing the outfit.
For the ladies, it is much easier when you know what you are going to wear to build around your outfit’s pace and weight.
Take a look at this family photo. All colors here are based on the lady’s outfit colors, which are complementary to each other. There are no hard opposites like red to green or yellow to blue. We see only tints here which are going from darker to bright, from dark blue to denim color into cyan shirts. It is especially important to complement each other in family photography, thus you are the one as a whole and not trying to stand out by yourself.
Shapes and details
When picking your outfit, try and accent the smallest part of you. It could be either your waistline or right under the chest area, the Empire cut. Pay attention to what shape your clothes and accessory are made on and do not hesitate to use vertical lines like a jacket over top of a shift dress or even a scarf to create a vertical line going down your body. It is super slimming and super flattering. It is not less essential to feel comfortable with what you are wearing and confident.
Location is key
When determining your outfits, you're actually based on your location. Outdoor family photo color schemes have their own palette based on the place you are shooting in. Think about the vibe that your location puts off. Match the vibe of your location to your clothing. For example, the beach would mean clothes that are carefree like skirts or shorts, that keep the wind and the water and the waves in mind. And then like a park location could be more of a playful outfit, supper-casual. Wears urban or downtown might mean more hard lines that kind of match the structures of the buildings in a downtown setting.
Pick a palette
This is the easiest way of starting to dress everybody if you just pick two or three colors to stick with and some neutrals to dress your entire family.
Here is a good example of probably woman dress was chosen first, and then the mom builds her child’s and her husband's outfits around this.
Also, do not be afraid to use patterns. You can mix small and larger patterns together as long as you stay in a similar color palette. You can even mix textures and different kinds of fabrics to create a layered look, which is super flattering. In this image, you will see how your eye dances from person to person because of all the variations in their outfits
You really want to think of it as going together with your family instead of matching. But sometimes you should not avoid matching is good if you want to add some storytelling vibes to your photo. Thus, you may take a photo at some sporting event. In that case, matching colors shows that you are a good team, which is equal to being family. Matching colors, sometimes you can discover some good group photo color schemes.
But even there we can see some elements of complementation. Thus, depending on the group size, the palette can be also wide to cover more complementary colors in it. That way, we can get almost a rainbow of tints containing just one or two colors.
As being said, a color scheme can be based on a pallet and location. Thus, if you want to fit the interior or location, the weather and the time of the year should be also taken into consideration. Let us break it down for seasons and more certain color pallets.
Best family photo color schemes
The best colors you can choose from depend on a number of factors that we've already talked about. But seasonal colors have their own rule set for that, therefore we shall break it down to see the logic behind that idea.
Spring and Summer family photo color schemes
For warmer seasons, we can wear warmer colors. Thus tints of yellow, blue, and white are our best friends. You can also use some aqua, pink and orange colors due to their pureness.
Spring family photo color schemes may not be that much different from summer colors. If we think logically, spring is a transition to summer, thus colors should be just a bit blended or dim compared to summer. That way, we can use cream, and tan colors to get the perfect image matching the seasonal uprise. And when it gets warmer, we can use color’s full potential and fewer tints just to shine more and reflect it with more white tones.
Fall family photo color schemes
We talked earlier about how spring transitions the winter into summer. The same way autumn transitions summer into winter. The pattern for color here would have the same logic. We dim our colors here to match the outdoor circumstances, which is achievable with more yellow tints like mustard. Some mustard color shoes are very much complementing classic denim jeans and a gray jacket or sweater. Thus, you can base your family colors on that.
Winter family photo color schemes
At the end of the year, when it is snowy outside, thinking about color schemes is based on the idea of where you do photos. For outdoor shooting, you can do contrasts with black and white since the winter is the opposite of the summer, but it has the same color power to use. That way, more pure colors and less blending will fit you into the frame outside. Another part of that season has been taken by Christmas family photo color schemes. Here it does not matter if you are shooting indoors or outdoors, but the main thing is that we need to fit the celebration scheme. What's the first thing that comes to our minds? Santa Claus, green Christmas three, right? That is how we get green, white, and red colors into that.
Now you can mix it the way you like it.
Today, we have discussed a variety of different good family photo color schemes.
If we know the palette of our interior or the outdoor space, it is not very difficult to put up your family-worn complementary colors that fit the picture in the frame. Planning the way you will make your photography is important. But the most essential is to not forget to smile when you are in the camera lens because the smile is the best gift for your future memories. You may not be a professional photographer, but if you get the idea of how colors work together, you will be one step ahead of others with your outstanding shots.