Many people booking a portrait session ask the very same question – What do we wear? These handy hints for a better portrait session should give you some ideas on how to get your portrait style guide right for your family portrait.
Rule Number 1 – The unbroken rule
The number 1 rule when preparing for a portrait is to ensure everyone is comfortable in what they are wearing, or they will not enjoy the session. Here are some handy hints on what to wear are below. (This portrait style guide has been prepared by a professional photographer who has photographed over 1000 portraits in a 15+year career behind the camera.)
Hint number 1. When choosing appropriate clothing for your portraits consider that clothing should compliment and not dominate the portrait. To prevent overpowering the people in the portrait bold patterns, stripes and distinctive logos should be avoided. Solid colours, subtle prints and classic casual clothing are always complimentary.
Hint number 2. For a visual balance for a family portrait it is better to have everyone dressed in the same tones or colour themes. For example having everyone dressed in light or all in dark or all neutral tones.This does not necessarily mean that everyone must have matching outfits, rather dressed in clothing that has similar tonal range. Following this as a guideline will provide more pleasing and visually balanced portrait, where no individual family member will stand out.
Hint number 3. The next steps are deciding on a colour theme either lights, darks or neutrals and whether everyone will dress formally, semi-formal or casually. Remembering again that everyone needs to feel comfortable.
Once you have booked a portrait session, we will send you out a comprehensive guide (or you can download it here) on what to wear including appropriate colour themes, styles, makeup, glasses and props.
One of the most common questions our professional family photography studio gets asked is “What are some good family portrait locations?”
As a family portrait photographer, offering family portrait sessions not only in Perth but in country regions of Western Australia, I spend many hours trying to find out what people would like their printed portraits to look like on their walls.
Natural Light
Apart from a discussion family portrait locations, our family portrait clients usually ask about clothing to wear during family photos, and how we can achieve the best natural light to give the best results for their family photographs.
Of course, lighting and timing for your family portrait session are ultimately important. In Western Australia, we have beautiful quality natural light. Choosing the right family portrait locations to become one of the key choices for successful family portraits.
Family portrait locations that are comfortable
The right family portrait locations will engage any couple, family or children being photographed during the portrait session. Good family portrait locations will help them feel natural and comfortable in the environment.
Here is a quick visual guide to finding the right family portrait locations for your next photographic session.
Another guide would be to make a Pinboard on Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/ and look for family portrait location ideas and share it with your professional photographer.
Brook Desmond the lead Family photographer at Perth based Dezire Studios, has been shooting professional outdoor location family portraits for over 15 years. The following visual portrait gallery has been mastered during that time as is a wonderful resource for families looking for professional outdoor family photographs.
The Call for the Wildlife Photographers is out. Are you joining us on our next African Photographic Safari? Join myself and fellow Professional Photographer Paul Dowe ( http://www.pauldowe.com.au/) as we team up to bring you WILD LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY TOURS on our next Safari to the Africa. If you are interested in Photography or adventure or believe you take a decent photograph then you must be part of our next group in July this year. We promise the most amazing experience and guarantee you will come back with some amazing wildlife photography and a whole lot more. Plus your Photography skills will increase off the scale. Learn from two of the best Professional Photographers currently in the game with over 40 years experience and get your hands on some real cameras and lenses that will not let you down. Keep in touch as we post some amazing images from our last adventure to this amazing frontier and keep an eye out for the latest workshops and tours from WILD LIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY TOURS.
I’m grateful for the experiences I have and the photographic adventures that I’m apart of. Often the work I do as a photographer opens the door to see and partake in a world we don’t often see. It is during these experiences that I gain a great understanding for the way in which different cultures and peoples live. My mind is further enlightened, my respect for others increases and my understanding of others develops. I really love and search for opportunities to abide with and document people in their own way of life and environment.
On this occasion I was invited to a remote Indigenous community in Far East Arnhem Land. The community called Ramingining is very isolated from everything. The closest city Darwin is over 600km away on rough rugged roads and is inaccessible by vehicle during the heavy raining wet seasons, where roads become impassable. The community has approximately 800 people living in and around the area, many of the people have no knowledge of life outside of the community, yet they live in a loving and welcoming place.
To get to this place far from easy. Not only do you have to live in a different standard of living, but you must also gain permission and grants from the elders of the community. I was lucky enough to do this and take with me my family. In the end we spent a good 6 weeks there and gained a wealth of experiences we could not even imagine. This was a fantastic opportunity for me, and especially my children to learn a different way of lifestyle and interact with people of a totally different culture.
On arriving I discovered that there was little in the way of supplies. There is a tiny shop that stocks food and every day living items from Darwin. They are brought in by a Barge via the ocean and waterways and come in every 2 weeks, so taking careful stock take of what you have is essential. Having our 8-month-old baby with us did catch us out. There simply wasn’t a way of just going down to the local shops for his supplies of baby food and nappies. We actually did get caught short, and luckily enough a surprise flight to the mainland allowed us to stock up on the things we needed.
For the majority of the time we discovered that for every day living it was easier and way more fun to hunt and gather our food. Thanks to our friends and the loving hospitality of the local people we were taken to the best places to find our every day food supplies of mud crab, barramundi, magpie geese, buffalo and turtle. Each day we set off on an amazing adventure to catch what we wanted to eat and at the same time become educated on how to accomplice this.
I remember vividly my 6-year-old son learning how to make spears from scratch using stones and trees. In saying this we preferred using the trusty shotgun and fishing rods for most hunts, although we did also use sticks and made hooks for catching turtles and mud crabs.
The local people became very friendly with us and shared with us many things. As we opened ourselves up to their way of life, they began to share more and more, and our kids began to catch on to the basics of their native language. At times I wondered if I could teach the people more about my modern lifestyle and way of doing things. When reflecting on it I thought maybe their way is primitive and needs some serious upgrading, however when comparing simply ways of life I discovered sometimes our way of living in the western European way can seem primitive or complex anyway.
In the community when hungry we would go shoot some geese, pluck them, start a fire, cook the food, eat then relax. This became a very simple exercise in comparison to spending a few hours down the grocery store, time preparing the meal, setting up the table, eating and then more time doing dishes. Sometimes it just seemed easier to do away with some of those steps and seemed much easier and less complicated.
I found the food although prepared and presented a little differently to be delicious and wholesome, and of course the whole adventure of hunting for it ourselves was amazing. There are many stories that I will tell about what we did there and how we did it, but for now I will leave this blog post here by saying it was an amazing experience like none other.
One way of working with your images to create that something special with your images is in photoshop using photoshop smart object. The follow tutorial explains a little about this process and using smart objects. This process is effective when working with raw images or raw data. This is definitely the preferred format for me as a photographer wanting total control on the final result and output.
In short when you shoot jpeg, the camera as smart as it is makes a final decision about what data to include and disregard. Although it can give good results most of the time, by shooting in raw much more precision details can be reached. The raw format allows the extraction of detail that the camera may have disregarded but that you as the photographer and creator of the image may find very important. Shooting raw has its difficulties with file size being one and then time in postproduction another (This can be less of an issue with a great workflow and I will touch on this and a few other tips in a further blog).
Now back to photoshop smart object and how to get a grasp of it. In the first case I will show this image of an image straight out of camera (SOOC).
i.IMAGE STRAIGHT from Camera is a little cold
ii. THIS IMAGE has been colour corrected and makes that small but important modification
iii. The top image also needs a white balance adjustment. Spot the difference only minor but signifcant on the bottom image tweaked in Camera Raw.
Already I see things that need correcting or Photo shopping as many people term it. This is done in camera raw and apart from these corrections there are many stylized effects that can be created. The ones that I like I save as Raw presets. And thats something else I will discuss further.
This image shows the basic corrections for a technically sound image, but from there the alternatives are many and the creativity can flow. Most of the time if I as the photographer have done a good job there is very minimal adjustments to make, sometimes just the colour balance, brightness and a little contrast. If I underexpose, the exposure tool is good and if the highlights are too bright the recovery works good. There are so many other things that raw processing allows and some of my workshops really hone in on this and how to master it.
I will run through it step by step and you can see how the image transforms very easily using smart objects as your tool.
1. After making some adjustments I hold down the shift key, which turns the OPEN tab into an OPEN OBJECTS tab then, I click this or press return (enter on PC). This will open the images as smart objects in Photoshop and this is where the fun can begin. Don’t worry if its a bit slow objects tends to do this and you may look at optimizing Photoshop’s speed to counter this.
2. Now you have the images open, if you have worked with layers in Photoshop before you will notice that it’s not locked to the background as a normal non-smart object image is. The beauty of photoshop smart objects is that you can double click the icon in the layers tab and it will reopen in camera raw so you can make further adjustments.
3. Now for creativity we might try something and to do this we simply duplicate the photoshop smart object by right clicking on the image number in the layers tab. This will bring up a list of options and then we will go to new smart objects via copy. We now have a copy of the original object
4. Double click on the top layer or object to alter it in camera raw. Slide the sliders where you want or add a preset. My first thought with this image is to change it to a high contrast black and white and this will become like a layer effect over the top of the image. When you are happy with what you are after click OK to commit the changes, but don’t worry you can always refine it or go for a totally different look by simply double clicking on it again.
5. Now that this image is on top to have the bottom layer show through you will need to select a blending mode from the layers palette. In his case I have changed from normal to soft light. But there are many options to choose and this includes changing the opacity and flow too. Like I said before the best thing about objects is you can reopen the image to access all its raw data simply by clicking on the image again. If you want to learn a bit more about why to use photoshop smart objects check out this video
6. Lastly if you want a bit more control you can do this by creating a layer mask and making isolated adjustments to certain areas only. (Another day another blog post for that.)
Here are the final images to compare to the original
Now look at the original and the finished image. And here is a couple more that I did all from images I took at our recent family vacation.
There are a couple of key factors to consider when having your next family portrait. There are all the usual, what should I wear? what style should we go for? are we dressing formally or are we going for a casual look?
As a premier leading portrait studio in Western Australia, we will guide you through those important decisions. All our clients who book a portrait session with us receive their complimentary and comprehensive guide on what to wear to your portrait session, how much makeup to apply, whether to wear glasses or not, and what props work. We have guidelines and suggestions for colour co-ordinating clothing, how to get the tones right, whether or not to wear all the same images, and how to dress so you can achieve the look you are after, all the while remaining comfortable and looking natural.
The other key factors to consider are timing and location. Our studios specializes in natural family on location portraits, images that appear candid and unposed and show you naturally having fun. Our motto is Life, Love, Laughter and it takes a little preparation to get it right.
Our studios specialty is on location portraits. The reason for this is simple. You and the family will feel more comfortable, especially young children who may normally feel cooped up in a studio. The session becomes an experience, a happy and joyful family moment, an event that you will always remember together.
The most important thing to remember is even with on location portraits the focus is still about the people and not the landscape. In saying this, yes the landscape is important, the background is essential, but it is merely a way of complimenting the people that are in it. A nice background will not over power the people in the portrait, but will add taste and flavour.
The essential key in on location portraits is most definitely lighting the scene right. In a studio, the strobes or flash become the key to lighting the subject and the background. On location portraits are controlled by the ambient light from the sun. The sun is a powerful beast and has the ability to dominate the portrait if not used correctly. You would have seen these images before or even taken them on your own camera. Things like harsh shows under the eyes, nose and chin or to one side of the face. Similarly splotchy light making unattractive patched on the face will do the same thing. With the right lighting not only will you get the most flattering portrait, but you will also have a splendid background to compliment and add flavour to the portrait and enhance your already glowing self. Get the light wrong and you merely add age to you.
Light is a Photographers trick and mastering outdoor light that you cannot dial down or amp up is a specialized art. It takes years of training and hands on experience to master this and be ready for whatever comes your way. But what on location portraits sessions allow, is for individuality and uniqueness. Shooting the same on location portraits at different times or on different days will give different looks. You will have your own unique portrait that is totally personal to you.
Much better than having the same pose, same backdrop, same lighting and same clothes as the last client that came through. And with a wealth of amazing locations here in Perth Western Australia and throughout the nation and world you will have a much more rewarding and natural experience. In the next part of this post I will go into the types of locations and show you some samples of how to get you personal portrait experience.
Below are a quick sample of some different types of locations and as we share more on how to select the right location for your on location portraits, we will add more sample to help you select the right type of location for your next family portrait.
An example of a on location portraits in the bush
An example of on location portraits in the Urban architectural location
A Twilight session
An example of on location portraits in a Rural location . This was the clients actual farm
An example of on location portraits in the Park location
An example of on location portraits in a Beach location
I have a family, I am a Dad, I am a Professional Photographer and I’m a Mormon. I have Photographed and filmed the local Mormon or LDS missionaries from our congregation for them to send something home to their families in the various parts of the globe they live. Its a hard gig being a Mormon missionary. You get to bounce all over the place like a Kangaroo. I served as a full time missionary myself back in 1997-1999 and it was a life changing experience. I grew so much as a person and I became more faithful and spiritual. The other benefit that helps me every day in my photography work is that I got to meet and speak with new people every day from all over the world.
Today I am still a missionary but in a very different way. I aim to help my friends and family grow more spiritually in their lives and introduce them to the ones we assign as full time teachers called the missionaries.
We made this short film last minute for a bit of fun, and while it does show mormon missionaries jumping like a kangaroo (well one of them anyway), it focuses on a simple testimony of truth. If you see them around take a minute out of your day to say hi and feel the spirit of the message they share.
The image I share today is from 2010 while I was photographing India. I was travelling with family back to my mother’s homeland on a family heritage trip. During our stay there we were exposed to the hardships so many from that country experience. I would walk the streets daily absorbing the culture and challenges the local people faced. My heart was full of compassion for the many wonderful people I saw that had far less than I’d ever had to make do with. As I walked, I saw children in age similar to mine walking the streets, begging so that they could survive. I saw industrious hard working people looking for any opportunity to make ends meet. It made me appreciate the wonderful circumstances that I lived in and the great opportunities I could provide for my children. For me personally photographing India was a great joy and a massive challenge. There were many cultural barriers to overcome and the weather was just so hot and muggy too, which is so wonderful for photography.
A Beggar woman in Chennai
This particular image I captured of a local Chennai woman who was waiting outside one of the very few Christian churches, begging. I photographed her as she approached us. I noticed that she sat at the steps of the small cathedral and that many people had passed her by. I noticed her partially deformed and swollen leg, her frail arms outstretched, her body slouched over. Her sad, wrinkled face told me a story of harsh life and sorrow. I could not communicate with her in her language, but I gave her a small offering to help her and in the most beautiful way she smiled and showed her appreciation. My heart beamed in delight, that I could help in a small way another of God’s children. In that instant I forgot the long strenuous drive we were on and the humid sticky weather that I was finding almost unbearable. I began feeling peace and joy for loving someone else. I never saw her again, but this image and my emotions from our encounter remind forever how grateful I need to be for what I have.
My heart became so fond of this experience and the others that I had on this journey photographing India. I have become attracted to this country and its spiritual power, its amazing cultural diversity and the beautiful buildings and monuments along the way. I have teamed up with my good friends and fellow award winning professional landscape photographer Paul Dowe from Paul Dowe Galleries to take others seeking these experiences and adventures, helping other photographers to use the power of their camera to document the journey of life. Our Wild Light Photographic tours are more than just the average photographic tours, they are a journey – an exploration a life experience not to miss. One that we will be advertising and promoting soon will be a wonderful tour photographing India.
Travelling the long road in African on an amazing Journey
Let me take you on a Photography journey. I have promised on my facebook page that I will showcase some powerful images I have documented from my photography journey. This is part one of an ongoing series of images and stories that I will publish.
How can photography be so powerful? How can photographs take us on a journey? Why do images make us feel and do certain things? Professional Photographers and advertising companies have been studying this for so long and tried many techniques to portray a message to us, the viewer. For many years now I have worked as a Professional Photographer, capturing and creating images that illustrate stories and promote a message.
I have photographed the candid events of the bride and groom’s wedding day; the love and laughter from a family portrait session; followed the brief of the art designer for a magazine. Image-making with my camera has played many different roles and taken me on a wonderful journey. In my travels I have witnessed and captured many profound and amazing stories. Today I would like to start by sharing some of the things that my eye has beheld and my camera captured.
I recently presented a portfolio of images that I documented all over the world to a group of my peers and fellow professional photographers. I shared with them a group of powerful and personal images that have helped me put my life’s challenges into perspective. These images have helped me remain grateful for the wonderful blessings that I have in my life. I will be shortly sharing the first image from that series.
The Friendship games held in Perth for 2015 is a fantastic event helping build and strengthen communities from all over the world. Visiting teams from China and Indonesia were thrilled to be welcomed by our Indigenous dancers and former Australian Boomer and Perth Wildcats start Andrew Vlahov. Equally as impressive were the Chinese Kung Fu and Lion dancers
The History of the games was conceived as an event to provide a collaborative framework for sports diplomacy with our Asian neighbours, commencing with Shanghai, China. Successful pilot events were held in January 2012 in Perth and October 2013 in Shanghai. These pilots provided significant life experiences via sporting and cultural exchanges for Western Australian local and regional youth and their Chinese counterparts. The games also provided a pathway and key learnings for building an event owned and operated by Western Australians.
The youth attending the event included visitor’s from Indonesia, China, Regional Western Australia and inner city Perth. Venues around Perth area hosted the multiple events including Basketball, Badminton, Athletics, Table Tennis and Soccer. Designed to accommodate youth aged 12-17, day campers could attend daily events while those on a live in scholarship stayed in the Leeuwin Barracks in East Fremantle.
With the opening ceremony now complete, we shall let the games begin.
I have just finished off working on this portrait album design for a wonderful families portrait album. Please watch & share. I can’t wait to present it to them. I have loved the time I have had sitting down working on this portrait album design. The day of the Photo shoot, we spent the morning at their home preparing for the Photographic portrait session, and then we wondered down to Hyde Park to take some lovely family portraits. I cannot wait to share the entire blog and the story, miracle and journey of this beautiful family. You will be amazed at their courage, strength and love for each other, and the amazing friends around them who support them in their journey and challenges.
It is a joy working with wonderful families like this. A Mum and Dad that love each other and together work hard to give their kids the very best. I just love seeing families enjoy being together and it is the privilege of my job as a professional photographer to be with them and Photograph them celebrating the simple joys of life. This work sums up my style as a photographer, and to finish it up with a lovely portrait album design just completes it perfectly.
This amazing family has endured some serious pain and suffering and need your support and Love especially during this hard time. I made this album for them and presented it to them today, on what will be a day in their life that they will never forget.
Please Watch this clip it will break your heart – Such an amazing family. Biggest love and prayers to them now.
While this lucky couple is away on their Honeymoon in romantic France and Europe, we have decided to upload a couple of sneak previews of their Wedding Photos. If you weren’t lucky enough to be at their beautiful Wedding at Mulberry on the Swan, you would have missed the fact that it rained all day and we had to brave the elements for a small period of time to get a couple of Photographs in the normally beautiful Swan Valley region. Dan & Felicia were total troopers as were their family and bridal party. And even with the weather the way it was, it truly was a photographers delight. Hope you enjoy the little blog post about their wedding, and we promise a full updated post when the lovely couple return from their Honeymoon.
Wedding rings with the Brides parents Wedding album
Bride’s parents ponder on their Wedding day as the Bride prepares for her day
Before the really wet weather set, we took a nice drive up to Kalgoorlie. Being a professional photographer I get to wear many hats, so while I was there I had the opportunity to run some Photo workshops with the wonderful people of Kalgoorlie. This is a nice change up from the Weddings and Portraits I normally shoot.
On a nice cold frosty morning we made plans with a local camera club to take some early morning pictures during a photowalk tour capturing the character of Kalgoorlie town. The newly formed camera club Pic Perfect – Painting with Light, is a wonderful group of like-minded photographers who are very keen to get out and about and take some great photographs. While in Kalgoorlie I also conducted a Photography seminar or tutorial on capturing better photographs – the art of photographing people. This little early morning camera class was the lead up event to the main seminar and we were lucky to have so many keen photographers brave the Kalgoorlie morning chill and get their camera snapping.
This Mothers day we ran a photography competition , and asked you all to pick an image that best resembles motherhood. We also asked you to share in your own words your personal feelings about your mother or about motherhood, and what is special about mothers day. Well firstly, happy mothers day to all the others out there, and thank you for your wonderful and amazing contribution to life. Also thank you for touching our hearts with you kind, uplifting and inspiring words about mothers, we really have felt the spirit of this mothers day.
Mothers day giving what you have
Mothers day love is devotion
This mothers day, I am thankful to my mother, she is so wonderful and special and has given everything so that we can be who we are. She still continues to be this amazing person
Mothers day photography voucher – Mother’s day competition
We have decided that this Mothers day, we would run a competition so that some lucky people can win a photography voucher. As a Professional Photographer in Perth, I witness many wonderful moments and unforgettable memories. The love between a mother and her child, be it teenager or baby, is one of the most warming and lovely things I get to experience in my job. In this Mothers’s day competition You will need to select you favourite mothers day image. The image that typifies motherhood. The most natural picture of a mother interacting with her daughter or son.
Mothers day image 1
Mothers day image 2
Mothers day image 3
Mothers day is one of those special days that we love to celebrate. we truly are grateful for the mothers in our lives and honor and respect the challenges they have faced and the sacrifices they have made.
In my life I am blessed with a wonderful mother
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