Once you’ve chosen a portrait photographer, a time, day, and location for your portrait session, the next dilemma is: what to wear?
Often this is a very tough choice – most people have no idea what colours will work well in photos, or what styles of clothing – so who better to ask than your Vancouver portrait photographer!
For an outdoor session, I generally suggest that my clients wear colours that will compliment and environment while at the same time standing out a little. A great example would be a session in a park during the fall – there are lots of greens, golds, and reds. Some excellent clothing choices for this environment would be nice jeans, dark coloured shoes, and sweaters in colours such as dark gold, rust, chocolate, dark green, dark teal, dark red, etc. By comparison, a summer beach session would be complimented well by light cotton khaki pants, light coloured breezy shirts, and sandals or even bare feet. Ultimately, what you wear depends on where your session is taking place.
There are a few clothing items that, unfortunately, never work well in portrait photos. Shorts are a definite no-no, as are mini-skirts – the problem with these articles of clothing is that they show a lot of leg, and all that skin tends to “glow” and be a bit distracting in a photo. The same applies to athletic shoes – as they tend to be white, they show up a lot in a photo and can steal some of the attention from the main subject – you! Also, logos on clothing are bad – there are few things more distracting in a photo than the words “Calvin Klein” blazed across a T-shirt! In general, solid white shirts or pants are also something to avoid – a large area of white will draw the eye in and away from the subjects. Lastly, it’s usually best to avoid heavy patterns – there are some exceptions – but you can’t go wrong with solid colours.
In terms of make-up – pile it on! Make-up tends to disappear by at least 50% when photographed, so it’s a good idea to wear extra to make sure it shows up in your portrait photos.
If you’re still not sure what to wear, just ask your Vancouver portrait photographer – they’ve had lots of experience and will know exactly what to suggest. Or, check out their portrait photography online and see what other clients wore to their sessions. With a little coordinated effort between you, the other subjects in your portrait session, and your photographer, the result will be beautiful portrait session images for you to enjoy over and over again!
