What To Wear For Modern School Portraits | Portland Oregon School Photographer

Not sure what to have your children wear for their modern school portraits?

I’m going to review my top seven tips, which can be used for their school portraits with me, and can be used for their school portraits in general.

1. Complimentary Colors

   Think about colors that compliment your student’s skin tones and or bring out the color of their eyes. Jewel tones are usually colors that work well with all skin types and look great in photos.

2. Solid Tops

   Solid shirts in jewel tones, neutrals, and pastels always look great. That being said I’d recommend avoiding grey clothing as it can blend into the background as well as avoiding fluorescent colored tops as they can create unflattering color casts on the chin and neck.

3. Small Details

Small details around the neckline such as small prints, textured tops, and cardigans add interest without distracting from the primary subject, your child and their amazing personality.

4. What To Avoid

Although our kids fun graphic tops and character shirts really highlight their age, I suggested not to wear tops with logos, large graphics, or text as they can be cut off and distract from your childs face.

5. What They Love

Involving your child in choosing their outfit and matching it with their general style helps them feel their best for their photos!

6. Glasses

If your child wears glasses my aim is to photograph them with their glasses as they become part of who they are (As a glasses wearer I feel this deeply). Please be prepared for me to spend a bit of extra time on their photos. As these are natural light portraits the light often reflects in their lenses and can block the visibility of their eyes. If your child has ‘transition’ lenses, these will 100% transition during their photo session. So, we may need to remove the lenses and photograph them with only their frames on. Also, many glasses are highly reflective or have a glare. If this is the case I may need to work on achieving special angles to eliminate the glare as much as possible, but this does make capturing their true personality a bit more challenging.

*One tip is to plan ahead when ordering glasses and to purchase non-glare lenses. For our photo session, just come prepared to either remove lenses, take some images without glasses on, and to have a bit more flexibility. Also, please arrive with clean glasses prior to your session.

7. Just Relax & Have Fun

My biggest tip for parents is to let their kids know the session is meant to be easy, fun, and laid back. They can smile it they want to. They can be serious. They can laugh hysterically. It’s meant to be a low pressure and easy way to capture their annual portrait.

If you’d like more ideas about how different color tops appear in modern portrait images, please check out my modern school portrait portfolio.