What to wear for family photos in Calgary

Nine times out of ten, the thing that makes a family photo feel awkward is not the posing. It is that five people got dressed in five different directions and the photograph has nowhere to rest.

Here is how we tell Calgary families to think about it, without turning your session into a styling project.

Start with one person, not seven

Pick the hardest person to dress. Usually that is a teenager with opinions or a toddler with three clean shirts left. Build everyone else around whatever that person is wearing. Choosing outfits as a committee produces a group that looks assembled; choosing them around one anchor produces a group that looks related.

Coordinate, do not match

Matching white shirts and jeans made sense in 1998. What works now is a palette of three or four colours that sit near each other, with everyone wearing some combination of them. Cream, rust, olive and denim. Navy, grey, soft white and camel. Nobody should be wearing a colour that appears nowhere else in the group.

If you photographed the outfits laid flat on a bed, would they look like they belonged in the same room? That is the whole test.

What Alberta light does to colour

Calgary sunlight is harder and cleaner than most people expect, especially in late summer and early autumn. Deep saturated colours hold up well in it. Neon, bright white and heavy black do not: white blows out in open sun, black flattens into a shape with no detail, and neon throws colour onto the face of whoever stands next to it.

Winter is the opposite problem. Snow reflects light upward and makes everything cooler, so warm tones, rust, mustard, burgundy and cream, stop a January photo looking clinical.

Season by season

September and October

The best weeks of the year here and the first to book out. Layers work: a light knit, an open shirt, a jacket somebody can take off. Golden hour is generous in early autumn, so texture reads beautifully. Avoid heavy coats you would not want in every frame.

November through March

Two options. Outdoors, commit to the cold properly with coats, boots and mittens that look intentional rather than borrowed, and keep sessions to 30 or 40 minutes. Or come into studio, where we control the light and nobody's kid is crying about their hands. Studio sessions in Calgary winter are consistently our most relaxed.

April and May

Unreliable weather, excellent light, and far more availability than autumn. Bring a backup layer per person. Dress for mud if we are anywhere near the river.

June through August

Breathable fabrics and looser cuts. Anything that clings will cling more by the fifth group setup. Linen photographs well and forgives heat.

Small things that make a disproportionate difference

• Texture over pattern. Knits, corduroy and linen add depth without competing. One patterned item per group is plenty.
• Watch the feet. Everyone looks after the top half and nobody checks shoes, and shoes are in every full-length frame.
• Sleeves. Bare arms draw the eye more than you expect in a group. Long or three-quarter sleeves keep attention on faces.
• No logos or slogans. In ten years the brand on the shirt will date the photograph faster than anything else in it.
• Iron the things that wrinkle, and bring a lint roller if you own a dark coat and a dog.

Bring the kids' comfort clothes too

The first ten minutes of a session with small children go better if they are wearing something they do not hate. We often start in their own clothes, get everyone comfortable, then change into the planned outfits once they have forgotten the camera is there. Some of the best frames come from the warm-up.

When in doubt, send a photo

Lay the outfits out, photograph them on the bed, and send it before the session. It takes two minutes and it has saved more group photos than any posing advice we could give you. We do this with every family we photograph, and it is included in the planning call.