Preparing for your Close Up!

So you just scheduled a professional photo session for your family/ High School Senior/ Newborn/ Children/ Extended family. Now what? Do you just show up or is there anything to prepare?

 

Well, as great as the Cheetah Design Studio is, it does take some homework on your part to make sure you arrive at the session location ready for a great experience and great photos.

 

We have put together some tips on how to make your photo session a great success. 

The Look:

Be sure to give some thought to look you want in your images.  Do you want a very casual look or more formal? Is everyone going to wear the same thing or should you just coordinate? Does everyone have clothes that fit?  Nothing worse than getting dressed the morning of the shoot and realizing your kids shoes are too small or there are holes in the pants you wanted to wear!

Hair:
 Wear your hair as you normally do (with maybe a little extra effort).  You want to look like you in your photos so don’t try anything drastically different or intricate that you don’t already know you will love.

It’s ok to get your hair trimmed just before your pictures, but don’t get a radically different haircut or color right before your session. What if you don’t like it…it will be forever documented on film. 

Make-up:  Yes, even if you don’t usually wear any, use just a little bit for pictures. Mascara, and a little foundation…a little. If you do usually wear makeup that is fine, just don’t go overboard and please, nothing sparkly. 

Clothes: Bring a couple of outfits: jeans, and a couple of extra tops, maybe a sweater, or a favorite shirt. It is better to have a few to choose from then to decide after that you wished you wore something else.

If you’re having group photos done, please try to coordinate colors.  This will make the whole photograph pull together.  You don’t necessarily need to match, but having a common color or tone throughout the group will give the images a polished, put together look.

Avoid sleeveless tops, stripes, plaids, polka dots and busy patterns. Solid colors are best. Stay away from a lot of green…we are going to be outside and don’t want you to blend into the background.

Think classic, not too trendy. Trendy is not trendy after a year or so…it is just outdated.

Please, iron all of the clothes you are bringing, wrinkles don’t look good!

Shoes: Don’t forget your feet may be in some of the pictures, so give a little thought to how your shoes go with your outfit.  It’s ok to bring a couple pairs if you can’t decide what look you’re going for.

Jewelry & Accessories: Jewelry can add great visual interest to your portraits so feel free to wear your favorites, just keep it simple, don’t overdo it!

Glasses:  If you wear your glasses all the time. Go to your optometrist and ask if you can borrow a pair of your frames for the day with NO LENSES. They are usually very good about this. This will avoid any glare produced by your lenses. As much as we can edit the glare out, it is a much cleaner look if there is no glass in the frames and you won’t be able to tell the difference in the photograph. 

The Kids

We say – happy, rested, full kids are the easiest to work with.  

You say – yeah right how am I supposed to make all of that happen at the exact right time?!

Don’t worry we’re moms too so we get it and will do our best to work with your kids if you do your best too!

Please let us know if your kids typically nap at a certain time or have a particularly grumpy time of day, we will do our best to schedule your photo session around this time.

Please bring snacks! Now is not the time to make your kid wait for a snack, even consider bringing something special that they don’t typically get to have.  Bribes really do work! 

Consider bringing props especially for the littlest ones. A special stuffed animal or toy, their baby blanket or dad’s favorite baseball hat all make great additions to your photos and will make a great personalized touch.

Don’t be surprised if we ask the parents (especially mom) to leave us with your child for a bit while we take their photos.  Sometimes if you leave the area the kids will settle down a bit more and relax in front of the camera allowing us to capture the smiles and laughs that you will want.  It can be overwhelming for kids sometimes to have the photographer as well as mom trying to get them to look in the right direction, relax and smile so by asking you to leave we are just giving your child a chance to settle down.  Don’t worry, you won’t have to go far or for too long and you’ll love the results!

The Result

Putting a little time and thought into your photos, before the day of the shoot, will truly go a long way to making your session go smoothly and give you the quality, timeless, beautiful photographs you’ve been hoping for.

Looking for advise on anything else to prepare for your shoot? Please let us know!  We want to make sure your shoot is a pleasurable one and will do what we can to help get you prepared!

Be sure to check out some of our photo galleries to see what other families have done to make their images ones to treasure.