I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how we take our family photos without a photographer, so I’m gonna lay it all out for you right here! Now, let me say again… WITHOUT A PHOTOGRAPHER… I’m not one, I just like to pretend. 🤣🤣 These are not professional photos. Photographers are amazing and have the crazy ability to capture moments and feelings and I’m not there yet. BUT I have managed to bang out our Christmas cards for free for the past few years so I’m here to share what I’ve learned.

And I do just want to say… if I won the lotto I would hire a professional photographer to follow us around and document everything! I’m not in any way trying to discount anybody’s work! BUT… lets be real, who can afford a professional photo shoot each season?! Not me, obviously. 😉

So, STEP ONE: You have to find a friend who’s as crazy as you. If you don’t have one, find one…. you will need them for far more than this photo shoot.

Anyway… we love our foliage here in CT so fall photo shoots are our yearly tradition and we always pick a spot outside, usually with lots of leaves.  We meet up with our families for a “playdate” and trade off taking pictures of each other’s family. And IMO, getting good pictures comes down to a few things:

Lighting/location – As I mentioned, we love the foliage which makes lighting kind of a given bc the leaves are all outside. 🤷🏼‍♀️ If you can get evening pictures that truly is the golden hour, but we never seem to be able to make that work lol. Any outdoor photos are usually well lit enough for editing, and I just take a few test shots in the spot we pick to make sure there are no weird glares or shadows, and the angle is right for the picture!

Outfits – I’m not a fashionista by any stretch of the imagination, but putting together family outfits may be my favorite part of family photo shoots. I love color palettes, and I try to pick 3 colors and one neutral, as many layers as possible, and at least 2 prints. This year’s photo shoot was planned the day before, so I put together things that we had and then ran out for the rest!

Volume – We literally take 500+ pictures each and maybe get 5 potential Christmas cards, if we’re lucky. So be ready for that.

Candids – idk about you, but whenever I try to get my whole family looking and smiling at the camera…. the smiles are all fake and forced and it just doesn’t work. SO – we have learned to make it into a game…. and to take candids. We play red light, green light. We play Simon Says and Simon always says to look at someone. 🤷🏼‍♀️ and then when that doesn’t work, mom goes crazy and yells at everyone that IF THEY WOULD JUST FRIKKEN COOPERATE WE COULD GET THIS DONE AND GO HOME. And then they do. Candy and bribery are also some of my favorite techniques.

Editing – If you’re scrolling through insta feeds it should be no surprise that everyone is editing everything. I like the Lightroom Mobile app. It takes a lot of playing with to get it to look the way you want, but it will look like a whole new picture when you’re done. There are plenty of tutorials online to show you how to edit for the effect you want!

All pictures above are from this year’s shoot. Below are the two previous years. I think the outfits and editing are getting better as we go, but I’m also pretty lucky I have such a cute fambam to photograph, and great friends to make it happen!! 😘

AND – if anyone ever wants to get together and trade photo shoots LMK!!! I’m always down and I honestly want to get a real camera and start learning how to use it, so I’ll need some test subjects. 😉