Hellobee

Every year for as long as we’ve been married, Mr. Garland and I have made it a priority to snap a family photo around the holidays. Most years we use these photos for our Christmas cards, but sometimes we skip the cards and just make sure to get the photo. I love looking back and seeing how these photos have evolved over the years (and how our family has grown!), and it’s a tradition I don’t ever want to stop.

This year, I finally feel like we’ve got the formula for a good photo down and we are a well-oiled machine. Our shoot took less than 30 minutes from start to finish and I think our photo turned out pretty darn perfect.

Here are my best tips for taking a good DIY family photo:

1) Make sure everyone is full and happy. Do I really need to expand on this? Ain’t nobody taking a happy family photo when they’re hangry.

2) Coordinate your outfits, yes, but don’t match. Gone are the days of khakis and white button-downs for a family photo! We loosely coordinated our outfits for our family photo this year, but I ended up in a different color shirt than anyone else and I think the photo looks great. We’re all in the same general color family, and (most importantly) everyone is comfortable in what they’re wearing! I’ve also learned not to intervene and try to suggest clothes for Mr. Garland because it makes him cranky, so I just choose mine and Jackson’s outfits and let him do his own thing – and it always works out just fine.

3) A tripod and remote will be your best friends. We actually couldn’t find our remote for this shoot, but in the past we have always used it. You can get one for cheap online and they make these types of photos so much easier to take. We also use our tripod so much more than I thought we would! We felt a little silly setting it up in the middle of the park on a busy day, but we got the photo we needed so I’m more than happy!

4) Prepare to take a million photos, but be willing to stop sooner. Mr. Garland checked our picture after we took the first one and immediately told me we had our shot. We took one more just to be safe, and then we stopped. You always hear that you have to take hundreds of photos and sort through them, and sometimes that’s true. But sometimes, you catch a perfect photo within the first few frames and you quit while you’re ahead!

5) Have a fun activity planned afterwards. We took our photos at a local park and Jackson knew that as soon as he took a picture he could go down the slide. He was ready to give us his cheesiest grin before we even had the tripod set up!

6) If you’re taking it for a Christmas card, choose your design ahead of time! This helps so, so much. If you already know the design you’re going to use, that can drive your entire photo shoot. I knew we wanted a very simple card with a landscape photo, so I kept the background visually uncluttered. If you scope out the designs a few days before you even take the photo, you can get a good idea of the style you want to go for (pull ideas from the sample cards online!) and it will make your shoot go that much quicker!

7) Forget the formula. So often, we are automatically programmed to line everyone up in the center of the frame, tell everyone to look at the camera and smile, and snap our photo. But photos look and feel so much more authentic if you shake it up a bit! I specifically told Mr. Garland to put us slightly off center when he was setting up the tripod, because I knew the look I was going for. Don’t be afraid to try something new or different – maybe it will look ridiculous, but maybe it will look awesome!

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What are your best tips for taking a good family photo?