Did you
picture the bridge and groom standing in a garden with colorful flowers? A gazebo?
Most of us do because that’s what most of us are programmed to think
makes a good portrait – a colorful and warm background.
Truth is,
you can have unique pictures at any time of the year and the richness of your
imagery doesn’t have to come from flowers.
Winter is a great time to find just the right light and composition to
make your loved ones look their best in a formal portrait.
This is
Connecticut so you’ll need to be flexible on timing. However, you won’t have to wait long for the
weather to go from warm to cold to wet to dry.
Nor will you have to drive far to find the background you want. How about a waterfall with icy edges leftover
from one of those cold nights, while the afternoon sun is warming up the park
to a seemingly impossible 60 degrees?
Drop the coats off on an unused picnic table and shoot!
Do you have
a favorite site where you’d like to pose your family? Maybe an historic building such as the Mark
Twain House? Sure, landscaping can be
great for background but, if you pose yourselves in the right way and put the
emphasis on the manmade portions of the scene, the lack of greenery may offer
you just the composition you need, making the family portrait sharper and
cleaner. After all, the whole point of a
portrait is not to see leaves but to see faces.
One of the
advantages of a formal family portrait in winter is the need to be quick about
it. You can plan for some hot chocolate
after the pictures are done but there is a sense of motivation if your portrait
subjects want to put their coats back on.
There can
also be a sense of fun and adventure in finding a new spot, something different
for the annual ritual of lining up the loved ones to share pictures with family
and friends. By getting the level of
excitement up, you can increase the likelihood of beaming expressions on your
subjects.
You will
also love the rosy cheeks!
If you want more tips on
how to take a good winter family portrait, give us a call at Premier Portraits
Studio. We’ll even tell you how we love
the way any photo can be made black and white but winter shots really are crisp
in that conversion.
