Taking your own Family Photo!
Alright! We all have amazing cameras in out pockets. And, I bet that a lot of you have some pretty nice DSLR or mirrorless cameras too. Today, I’m only going to talk about using your phone to take your own family portrait. You can do it!
Don’t miss the quick quiz at the end!
This picture is far from perfect but we are all in the same pic! Camera was propped up on a foldable lawn chair up on a mound of sand to make the camera at about my chest level. I placed Papa in the center of the frame and asked him to be the center. Once I had taken a couple test shots, I called everyone else over. Told them papa was the center and to snuggle up. I used the 2 sec interval, 10 pics setting (see below about self-timer app) and we only needed to do it once!
What you need: Your phone, a self- timer app, and something to prop your phone up on.
Your phone. Our phones are great cameras. All the way back to iPhone 5, okay!? Always, clean your lens. Use your shirt and rub it clean. There are plenty of tricks you can use with your phone but when you use a timer, your camera is basically in AUTO mode so you need to try and find great light.
If you can ask a friend or relative to snap a few (once you’ve found the right spot/light), I think you’ll be less stressed. Have a dinner picnic with another family wanting to do the same thing and take each other’s photos! But, you should give this self-timer a try anyways because it’s fun and useful in a lot of situations like cooking, playing, reading, or snuggling your kids!
Self-timer app. I like Photo Timer +. It’s free and is really user friendly. Set it to :05 delay, :02 intervals, 10 pics.
Phone holder. Foil works amazing! You can google and find a bunch of ways to bootleg a phone holder but they are all fool-full and are rarely adjustable. Foil can be bent to change the angle. If you’d like to buy a proper one, I like the gorilla pods by Joby. I have three. A small one, large one (can hold my large camera), and the bendy one without the little balls (holds our projector). There are other similar models too and think you can even get them at Target or 5 Below.
First, where do you want to take the picture?
Things to consider:
Composition: Connection/Content always over composition. But, if you want everyone smiling at the camera or close to it, you need to try to be in focus and try to have decent composition.
Background: ‘Clear the head’ is a common idea in photo composition and really just means to remove all distractions from what you’re trying to focus on. When you look at a place, will anyone have trees sticking out of their head or cars coming out of their booty? If you’re far enough away from the background it doesn’t matter too much but a lot of people like to stand next to a tree and that almost always looks a little wonky. When it’s okay to pose by a tree: The branches frame your subject (live oaks are great for this). There’s enough foliage to create a uniform background.
Limb/head chops- These don’t bother me at all when there’s emotion or connection in the photo. That’s hard to get with a timer, so fill the frame with the family but leave a little wiggle room to crop for a different aspect ratio (5x7 are longer and taller than 8x10) or in case it’s crooked.
Light: this is THE MOST IMPORTANT part of all of this. You find good light, your image will be great. If you want to do it on the front porch, look at how the light hits it throughout the day. Speckled light going through a tree isn’t very appealing.
My house faces East. The best front porch light for us is when when the sun rises in the morning but before it’s over the houses across the street, on cloudy days, or when the sun has tucked behind our house.
If there’s cover, move the subject forward and back till you see light in their eyes. A ceramic mug can be used as a stand in if you can get it to eye level. If the mug has no reflections on it, try rotating towards the light or waiting for another time of day.
Sunsets and Backlight are beautiful but can be tricky to see faces and edit. Any completely white or black spots in your image are likely lost information so you want everything to fall somewhere between.
Colors: all grass (too green!) will reflect green up on your family. Bright walls, even brick, can give a funny color so take a couple test shots with a person there. Use a white/light gray mug (from above) to see if any colors are strongly reflected.
Now, instructions to give:
If someone else is taking your photo-
Let them know that you are hoping to frame or send this as your card. It’s amazing how seriously they’ll take it. Two years ago, we were wearing every piece of clothing we had because we were in Hawaii at the top of freezing Maunakea. We looked ridiculous but I asked a person who seems to be carefully taking phone pics (you know the ones!) and mentioned that we’d probably use this for our card. He took about 5 pics and we could have used any of them, blanket tucked into pajama pants and all!
Ask them to take a few landscape and a few horizontal. If they seem to be willing, you can even ask them to take a few closer in and a few full body.
To your family-
If using a timer: Tell everyone it’s going to take 10 pics every couple seconds. Let them know that every time they hear a click they can change their snuggle as long as the camera can see their face.
When it’s pic time-
Check for food faces and messy hair. Best pre-pic/bribery snacks are light colored (mini marshmallows, un-iced animal crackers, clear/orange lollipops etc)
Make sure you can see everyone’s face and that there are as few gaps as possible between people.
See the sis-in-law, niece, papa gap above? That may have looked nicer if my niece stepped in front of papa since he wasn’t fashion-prepared. My bro-in-law was also not prepared but it’s less noticeable because he had his son in front of him.
I like to ask everyone to stand tall and stretch their heads high, take a deep breath, and relax your shoulders back and down. If someone it too tense, you can ask them to sway a bit.
If you have a runner, like my 3-yr old nephew pictured above, you might have to use some tricks like, ‘oh my goodness, there’s a flying dinosaur!’ said in a happy, joking voice (if you say it in a scared like ‘aaah! a shark! or ask a questions like, ‘is the camera going to fall over?’ everyones face will express the horror or confusion!). A busy body likes to be tossed and spun around too. So instead of getting frustrated, pretend like your’s throwing him to Mars and that he’s crashing into your arms. Or, you can take the best one of everyone else and remember that time Finn was chasing the dog instead of looking at the camera. Captured a moment in time!
MY FAVORITE PROMPT FOR ALL AGES IS . . . . to tell everyone you want a sweet smile and then to giggle or laugh out loud, then sweet smile.
If you’re willing to try, this is taking it a step further. Tell them beforehand what you expect of them. ‘First we are going to have a couple sweet smile pics, then I want everyone to giggle or laugh, then we can tickle, then snuggle.’ Seems like a lot but say it up front, then all you have to do while you’re in the pic is say the key words.
Sweet smiles! click, click
Giggle! click, click
Tickle! click, click
Snuggle! click, click
I love you family! click, click
My husband has legit resting serial killer face. He uses the giggle every. single. time. we take a pic and it absolutely works!
That’s it! Here are some examples to help you visualize some of what I mentioned above.
Locations left to right, starting at the top. Willow Waterhole (first 4), Menil Collection, Houston Baptist University, Evelyn’s Park (tall grass and black wall), Houston Arboretum, and Huntsville, AL.