Clothes can often make or break an image so a little forward planning goes a long way.
Plain and simple will create timeless portraits and one solid colour usually works best.
Another massively important consideration is co-ordinating with your husband/wife/partner. So wearing clothes of similar or complementing hues.
Try to avoid big busy crazy patterns or tops with big logo’s on the front.
Avoid thin stripes, small check, small herring-bone/gingham where possible as this causes weird distortions in digital imagery. It is called moiré. It occurs when fabric photographed contains repetitive details that exceed the sensor resolution. The camera then produces a strange wavy pattern that is quite distracting.
Tighter fitting clothes often work better than big baggy tops, especially on the arms, sometimes baggy can make you look bigger. If you are feeling self conscious about any body parts, I can pose you in ways that will help certain areas.
Darker colours will recede (and tend to slenderise) lighter colours come forward.
Avoid white and especially really bright/neon if possible as this will be the brightest most distracting thing in the photograph and the viewers eye will be drawn to your top instead of your faces, we want the viewer to look straight into your eyes (or just your face if your eyes are closed).
If you want to wear white/ light clothing, it works much better if both parents are wearing white/light items.
Don’t over accessorise, overbearing or heavily noticeable jewellery can be too distracting, we want your new baby to be the star of the photographs!
Make-up - If you do get a chance in the morning, do your hair and if you usually wear make-up, pop some on, even more than you perhaps usually would in the daytime, go for out-out make up! It not only looks good in photographs but you’ll feel so much better too! Please make sure that you either have no nail varnish on or freshly painted nails please, no chipped polish please!
I have plain fabric that I can wrap around mum if you’d like more of a skin on skin image. Let me know ahead of time if you’d like some body wraps. And of course, dads can take their tops off if they are feeling brave!
Of course you don’t always need to stick to dark colours. This mum came in a gorgeous mustard top which complimented the copper tones in her hair perfectly. As the photo shoot was around Autumn time and the family liked the autumnal colour palette, we wrapped baby in a dark leafy green wrap and the finished image was just stunning!
I photograph you on a black background or sometimes in front of my light for a light backlit shot- these are shot specifically for black and white photographs.
I have recently had a lightbulb moment 💡It’s so simple- but I realised I could clip fabric to my pop up backdrop to provide some different colour options for the parent shots - I can’t believe I didn’t think of this sooner (honestly I shock myself sometimes 😂🙈). This little revelation of mine was discovered during lockdown so I’ll be needing some guinea pigs to test out some new colours for me during the parent photographs once lockdown is over. Here’s some examples of other colours that I did with my daughter during lockdown- click here
I hope these little tips and nuggets of advice have helped you to decide on what to wear for your newborn photo session.
Ultimately, these are your photographs, so wear what YOU feel most comfortable in!
One last thing to remember is it is very warm in the room whilst we are doing the newborn shoot. Remember to bring along another change of clothes, perhaps some layers for you to remove if you start getting too hot! And if you’re breastfeeding, consider clothing for this also. I’ve had so many mums just focused on what to wear for the parent shots and realise they’ve bought nothing else and the top/dress they wore to be photographed in is not practical at all for breastfeeding! ( In this instance, I can always help you with a blanket to wrap around yourself if you should need it!)
During a longer standard newborn session, I’ve recently started doing the parent portraits at the beginning to save parents from getting too hot and flustered and makeup smudging come the end of a long session. This seems to be working better!
I look forward to meeting you soon,
Karen x