What To Wear For Your Photo Session

Wearing The Right Clothes

The concept of the photo session can be divided in to 3 main choices which determine some colour and tone choices. Colour is for example Red and tone is dark or light.

The 3 main choices are: High Key, Mid Key and Low Key.

High Key

mother and child [high key]

High Key is against a bright white background and has no shadows falling on it so the bright background is brilliant bright white. Against this type of background the best results are achieved by using colour co-ordinated looks with the subjects.

All white shirts and blue jeans for example will look great. Bright primary colours such as red, blue, green, yellow, orange; in fact any colour of the rainbow.

But take care, when we say rainbow we do mean rainbow and do mean vibrant Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. Pastel shades can work but take care and try not to use stripes or patterns that can distract.

Also, try and keep the clothing texture simple. One person in a fluffy bright deeply saturated green jumper and the others in a stripe shirt can distract. High key images suit fun ideas and kids and fun family interaction.

For example: If a man wears a suit, for a family shoot, he’ll look better with a bright green clown like bow-tie and a funny hat to help make the shot have a fun look. For high key the tone is generally light and clean. No dark shadows and is very flattering for all types of people from the super good looking to more average normal people.

Summary: Bright clean colours and bright tones. All try and colour co-ordinate to create a theme and keep clothing textures balanced and similar or complementary if possible.

Remember you are not selling clothes and even a cheap £1 shirt can look great in a photo if it’s bright and new compared to a more expensive top with bobbles due to aging wool.

Remember also a photo can have clips holding clothes to the body line or away from unwanted areas. The top model shoots always use clips to hold clothes in place.

Mid Key

angela russkie [mid key]

A mid key shot can have a background of any colour but there will normally be shadows as in the example above. For mid key looks similar rules apply but a more conservative look can also work. The guy in suit can look good in his suit and won’t need the funny hat or bright kids style green tie and this can work with a more formal look or a more classic look. Mid key shots though can still be a lot of fun and dont' need to be formal at all.

For mid key more pastel colours and tones can work and the tone can be a little darker. In the example above you may notice that one side of our model is fairly dark compared to the first high key example. Normally we would use a bit more shadows to produce a more classic look such as a guy in suit. Mid key is a little harder to light than High Key which is why so many high street studios now use high key.

Mid key can produce great looks though. Mid key can work well with more autumn like colours in shades of browns, muted reds, greens and gold’s or greys. We tend to use either a light grey or darker grey background for mid key shots. It really depends on the mood we want to create.

Summary: Pretty much anything goes from a fun look to a more classic look. A little more work and time to set up but can look stunning.

Low Key

baby picture [low key]

Low key are with deliberately harsh shadows and do not normally suit group shots so well unless very carefully set up and may need several small lighting adjustments to get a larger group right.

Often a low key shot for a photo session is against a black or almost black background. This set up though can produce the most visually stunning or dramatic photos.

Much more time is needed to do high quality low key shots and for this reason most high street studios do not do package deals with low key or won’t even do it at all.

Some top photographers will take hours or even days with trial shoots to get the award winning low key shots that make the highly sought after photographers who can demand seriously massive fees for their work.

low key is often down to pure artistic ability and not every photographer has a natural gift for producing such images. One of the biggest problems with low key is that it can highlight natural poor features such as a bent nose or bowed legs. For this reason the photographer doing low key has to have a real keen eye to spot what to do with each model and it’s never the same in every shoot.

Often low key shots are sold as low key but they are really just mid key shots against darker backgrounds and in darker clothing. The true low key image has very black shadow areas and the look is very 3D looking with good depth and very sharp.

Most often a low key image is shot with black and white or sepia in mind or even more dramatic colour shifts. A good low key image though is something very special and well worth spending some time on if possible.

What to wear for low key is pretty much the same is the mid key and even high key. Dark colours though work best. A Family shot with parents both in dark black tops, with long sleeves holding a young baby in bear skin can look amazing.

Men tend to have hairy arms and for low key to look good it’s normally better to cover arms up if possible but this is not a rule set in stone.

Summary: A very dramatic classic look with a great deal of time to set up but well worth the extra hour needed to the photo shoot.

Suggested clothing to pack for the photo session

3 outfits (minimum) for all subjects. Bring 5 outfits or more if you like. Your mood may change on the day and once you see something we suggest as a session idea.

parents with child

Outfit 1: Man and Woman with white tops and blue jeans.

Outfit 2: Man and woman primary colour tops either matching or complementary with each other. Primary colours Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue , Indigo and Violet are normally best for a fun look. Pastel soft tones can work but please check with us first for advice and ideas.

Outfit 3: Man and woman dark black tops with dark bottoms or blue jeans

Outfit 4: Optional; man and woman classic formal wear or themed wear to your ideas

Outfit 5: Optional; man and woman softer pastel colors and tones or warmer tones and colours, gold’s, muted reds etc.

Kids/children/babies:

As above but for babies we suggest bear skin tastefully posed can look best. We don’t mind accidents as long as you are prepared to help clean any mess.

parents with child 2

Try and Avoid: Baggy tops that can spoil body lines unless this is what you want to do. Sleeveless tops with baggy under arm areas can be difficult to light and pose the model. Don’t worry, we won’t make you look bad and unlike real life we can pose you and light you to best flatter you and show just your best looks.

Bring more than you need not less. We don’t need to use every outfit choice.

Please call 01344-412049 for help and advice.