Self Timer Family Photos
So it’s family photo time again! Last year a local photographer shot our family photos in the middle of the summer, in a gorgeous flower garden, and I absolutely LOVED them! But fast forward to this year.. it’s the end of the season, and I never scheduled family photos. What’s a girl to do?
I’ve done this a few times in the past, and it’s honestly been some of my FAVORITE family photos! I choose our outfits to be “coordinating” and not “matching”. This is very important, as you want your attire to not only be consistent in style with your location, but you want to choose a primary accent color, and then coordinating neutrals to go along with that primary color. In these photos, I choose the primary color as my vintage gold velvet dress, and then chose denim and blacks as my coordinating neutrals for Michael and the girls.
The secret to self time photos, is to utilize a tripod, or in my case, a step ladder, and place your family exactly where you would like them to be, in the exact order you’d like them to be, minus yourself! Then, you can go over to your camera, and take a test shot to make sure your settings (exposure, depth of field, white balance) are the way you’d like them and then press the self timer button and RUN! Because I already have the rest of the family posed exactly how I’d like them, looking at the camera and smiling, it’s easy to squeeze myself into the position that I’d like to be in, and be ready when the camera clicks. If you have a camera or phone, that allows you to take multiple exposures, I recommend this, so that if someone is blinking, or picking a hair out of their mouth, you’ll have a few frames to choose from each time.
To get cute “non-looking” photos, just repeat the same thing, but this time when you run over tell everyone to look at you, or look at dad, or laugh, or smile, or sit down and (gentle) tickling! Trust me on the gentle tickle. If you go all out, the images will be so crazy, it won’t be pretty to look at!
The group photos are the main ones that you need to do this with, and the rest you can switch off. You can take photos of the kids, and kids with dad, dad can take photos of you with kids, and if your kid is old enough, you can have them take photos of you and your significant other. Otherwise, you can also do the tripod/ladder self timer method for pretty photos of you and your honey!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this short little tutorial, and that you have some gorgeous family photos you’ll love this year, without having to go to a lot of expense or trouble! Leave a comment below with YOUR self timer family photos! I’d love to see what you come up with!
