Family Photoshoot Ideas

Most of my favourite family photoshoot ideas are things to do, rather than ways to stand.

Give a family something to be getting on with and their hands relax, their shoulders drop, and the frame starts to look like them.

That's the whole approach behind the way I shoot family photography in Sydney, and it's why I turn up with a list of small activities instead of a list of poses.

Here are the ones I come back to, and the feeling each one tends to produce.

Walk somewhere, together

Walking is the first thing I ask for, every single time.

You hold hands if you feel like it, you talk if you feel like it, and you head slowly away from me down a track or a quiet street.

Within about 30 seconds everybody forgets to perform.

Someone gets swung between 2 sets of arms, someone falls behind and runs to catch up, and a parent looks down at a child at exactly the moment I want.

What you get is a family in motion, which is how most of your Saturdays actually look.

It's also the gentlest way to start, because nobody has to be still while they're still finding their feet.

A rug, a blanket and a game with rules

A picnic rug turns the ground into a room.

Everyone sits lower and closer, and small children settle quickly because the rug gives them somewhere that belongs to them.

My favourite version is the blanket game, where 2 adults hold the corners, lift it high over the kids and let it fall slowly.

Light comes through the fabric, the kids shriek, and I photograph the half second before it lands on them.

You end up with laughter nobody had to ask for, which is a different thing entirely from a smile on request.

Piggybacks, chasing, and a child thrown in the air

Piggybacks put 2 faces at the same height, which is why they photograph so beautifully.

Ask for a lap around the tree, a chase from one end of the grass to the other, and let the kids win.

Throwing a small person in the air is the loudest idea on this list and often the one that becomes the print everyone loves.

I shoot it from slightly below so the sky sits behind them and the parent's face is tilted up in the middle of a laugh.

The feeling in those frames is trust, and children only hand that to the people they've decided are safe.

Give it 3 or 4 goes and then move on, while the game is still fun rather than a job.

Take the whole family into the creek

Water gives a family permission.

Shoes off, hems rolled up, into something shallow, and suddenly the adults are playing as hard as the kids are.

I shoot this often as a Hills District photographer, and further west where the light drops through the canopy in pieces and lands on the water.

Bring a towel and a change of clothes for everyone, then treat the wet clothes as part of the pictures rather than the end of the session.

If you're planning this one, my notes on outdoor family photoshoots cover timing, light and how to pick a spot that works for the ages you've got.

Family photoshoot ideas that suit your actual family

The right ideas for your family depend entirely on who's in it.

A shy 7-year-old usually prefers a job to a game, so I'll give them something to carry, pick or look after.

A teenager wants a reason to be there, so I'll ask them to teach their younger sibling something they're good at.

A baby is happiest about 40 minutes after a feed, up on a parent's chest, while the 2 of you walk and talk to each other and forget I'm there.

Pick 3 ideas rather than 10, and let each one run long enough to stop feeling like an instruction.

Clothing changes how all of this feels too, and I've written about what to wear for family photos with comfort in mind, because everyone plays more freely in something they'd happily wear on a normal day.

Photograph something you already do every week

The ideas that age best are the ordinary ones.

Pancakes on a Sunday morning with flour across the bench and someone standing on a chair to reach.

The bath. The 10 minutes of chaos before school. The reading chair with 3 bodies folded into it.

When I photograph these at home, the rooms make it into the record as well, including the pencil marks on the door frame and the kitchen you'll move out of one day.

Your children will remember the sound of that house long after they've forgotten a pretty location.

The quiet frame at the end

I keep the last 5 minutes for stillness.

By then everyone's warm, slightly tired and well past caring how they look, which is when a family looks most like itself.

I'll ask you to stand close, to hold your child the way you hold them when you aren't thinking about it, and to breathe out.

Nobody talks, and I take maybe 6 frames.

It's the one parents email me about a year later, usually because their child has grown and the photo still carries the exact weight of them on a hip.