A perfect portfolio means a perfectly prepared photoshoot, where you take impressive film-like shots. You want your potential client to see the quality of pictures you make. This will motivate your client to prepare better. It’s simple, this client wants to get photos of the same quality as in your portfolio online.
Your main task is to make your clients follow your photography. This will inspire them to work with you as a team. It will help you build incredible trust and loyalty. When your work involves heart, friendship, and trust, it will help you grow as a lifestyle photographer immensely.
How To Communicate And Prepare Family Photoshoot
Let’s say we found a family, and we begin to communicate. The first thing I do is send price packages to resolve the financial side of it all. If we spend a lot of time discussing and preparing for the shoot, but you won’t agree on the price, it will mean that you just wasted each other time. You really want to avoid that.
I’m always interested in what my clients enjoy, what hobbies do they have. This helps me generate ideas for a photoshoot. Usually, clients get inspired by your ideas and generate ideas of their own. These back-and-forth discussions are very important. Any idea that comes from a client is going to be the coolest thing ever because it will always be the concentrated essence of their family.
For example, if a family likes to cook, it will be cool to make a fun pasta cooking session in the kitchen. All family members will be busy with something they enjoy, and in the end, they’ll just eat a delicious meal they made themselves.
Another example, I may ask family members whether they like to go to the movies. Right as the conversation is happening, I can go to Pinterest and write keywords like “film,” “movie”, “movie theater”, then I just download awesome pictures that pop up on the screen. You can find pictures that can be so catchy, that they can inspire the whole photoshoot. I will describe how this happened to me at the end of this article.
Use Pinterest
The Pinterest app is a godsend, so I implore you to use it constantly.
This is where I create mood boards for my clients. I add everything that relates to this photoshoot: items, scenery pictures, clothes, print screens from street views on Google, some photographer’s pictures that will show the atmosphere we imagine to have on a shooting day. Usually, families get excited with an idea at once. After all, they see this idea beautifully arranged in online documents.
Clients feel how much you care, and they respond with a willingness to do everything in their power to make the photoshoot happen exactly as you planned. Essentially, it’s not your idea, it’s their idea! You just put together a stream of thoughts and visualized it all online, and presented it in a cool-looking way.
How To Choose A Location
What should you pay attention to when you choose a location? I pay attention to how many curious textured surfaces I can find in the streets.
I ask myself, is there an amusing perspective anywhere? Where the sun comes out at the time of the shoot, just in case I want to take a picture where my model’s hair is illuminated. And, I want to find points of view, where the background will be darker, so I’d have perfect exposure for the foreground, where my models would enjoy themselves.
I love to have my photoshoots on city streets because there is always an opportunity to hide from direct sunlight. It is important to pay attention to some reflective surfaces of buildings and use them as natural reflectors. There are a lot of glass surfaces in the city too. It’s funny to shoot through the glass. You can find these surfaces in cafes or summer terraces. These places are perfect for a family to drink tea and cheer up a dad, who won’t mind having a snack. While this family is perfectly relaxed within the café, you can catch delightful moments of their life.
How To Choose Clothes
I also help families to choose clothes for a photoshoot. I would like to point out that this is not a decisive moment of the preparation. I recommend to choose basic clothing. It is all about straight lines and simplicity. It should be easy to combine with other clothes, and should fit any type of body.
Clothes of neutral color will make your clients look stylish without unnecessary elements like prints, they’re just distracting.
This lengthy discussion about family hobbies, shooting location, clothing makes this family feel that I care immensely about the result of the photoshoot. They will remember this conversation and will be fully prepared and tuned to work on a shooting day.
What To Do After The Shoot
After the shoot, it is necessary to remind your clients about the time that is needed to edit pictures and how many of them will be edited.
Don’t be shy to praise your models, be sure to express that you are delighted with the photoshoot, and you can’t wait to edit the material. It is cool to show some pictures on the camera screen. And surprise them with a nice bonus – send two or three photos in the first few days after the shoot!
My Family Photoshoot
The picture you see in this article was inspired by a simple line that the client said to me,
“we love to watch popular music videos in our house”.
I found out that they have a projector that creates a big screen on the white wall of the living room. I made a mood board where I added pictures where some big family was dancing in the living room. We combined this idea with this family’s favorite pastime.
This photoshoot was a blast. Nowadays, when I visit this family on occasion, the kids always ask me to turn on this projector and dance with them again. It is an incredible feeling to be able to create these memories for children. I think this is the most inspiring part of being a photographer for me
