Our DIY Family Photos
For the past few years I have been doing my own family pictures for our holiday cards. Don't get me wrong I would love to have professional pictures taken of my family but lets face it something always happens. Either I can't afford to pay hundreds of dollars, my kids are not cooperative, someone is sick or I just don't have the time to schedule a shoot. So to save my self all the drama and a couple hundred dollars I do it my self. Now I am no professional photographer and I don't even own a fancy camera I'm just a mom with a camera with the help of Pinterest. I have no shame in my game and I will let you know exactly how I took my recent pictures and what I used.
|Photo Prep|
Coordinate your outfits.
Choose a date & location.
Make sure kids are feed and happy.
Bring lollipops for little ones or something they enjoy (in case of a meltdown).
Any props you may want in your pictures.
Pinterest (for inspiration & ideas).
|Equipment|
Camera
Tripod
Cell Phone
Camera App for Phone
After searching for inspiration and ideas on Pinterest I make sure to screenshot my favorite ones for easy access. Now I can't promise that you can capture the same pics but you make it work for you and your family. Kids get super antsy after some time so make sure to get the solo shots first and then move on to your group pictures. Don't get frustrated if your kids act a little crazy or are over it. I find that the best pictures are the ones that are unplanned and natural. Sometimes the posed pictures can be a little stale so just have fun with it.
Once I finished taking my kids pictures then I moved on to the family pictures. Now the family pictures I used my tripod and my cell phone. I synced my camera and phone together and so I was able to see on my phone what my camera sees and snap the picture right from my cell phone. Yes I am a one woman show. lol What I like about using my phone is that I am able to see who's looking at the camera before snapping the picture and once the picture is snapped I also can see what it looks like so if I need to take a few more I can keep snapping from my phone and it will store all the pics on the phone and camera as well. Once we are all done I edit my favorite pictures and we're done.
My pictures are definitely not perfect but that's what I love about them. The lighting was too bright in some because it was super sunny that day. No matter what angel I took the pics from it was just to sunny. And did I mention the location I went to had so many other families doing the exact same thing we were doing so trying to not capture anyone else's kids in my back ground was another fun obstacle. But we had so much fun doing it this year. Here are some of my favorites from this years shoot.
Happy Holidays from Our Family to Yours!!!!
