Faces on the Wall not in the Clouds: A Guide to a Profitable and Stylish Part 2

As I said before:

In my 20 years of experience as a professional photographer, I've found most people find family portraits to be boring, overwhelming or generally chaotic (if not all three). I felt exactly that way until I began incorporating Stylized Family Portraits into my business. Because of this mindset, family portraits are now more rewarding - both monetarily and inspirationally. Most important, Stylized Family Portraits give my clients a wonderful memory with their family, personalized art for their home and an experience they can't wait to share on social media. 

Here is the 2nd of the three keys that helped me transform my family portrait sessions from intolerable to inspiring.

Shoot your STYLE.  

The next step in creating stylized family portraits is shooting examples of your style. To determine what looks you want to shoot, first gather ideas. I buy physical magazines, dog ear favorite ideas and tear out those pages. I pin these pages up on a wall in my studio office. Be careful if you do this because my young son started tearing out pages from a magazine and when I asked him what he was doing, he said he was reading it like mommy does. Whoops! You can also create Pinterest boards, use the save button on Instagram or delve into the recesses of your very own brain to decide what looks you want to shoot.

It’s important when shooting sample images to be obvious and over the top. George Silverman said, in his book, The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, “Remember, people only go out of their way to talk about the Unusual, EXTRAordinary and OUTrageous.” If you are too subtle with your sample shoots, people won’t understand or see what you are doing. Give your clients something worth talking about and desiring.

When planning what to wear with my clients, I give suggestions for backgrounds, clothing and color schemes. I also go the extra step if they aren’t confident, even to the point of going to their homes or shopping for their shoots. When I closet shop in my client’s home, I pull the outfits and accessories from each person’s closet to give a cohesive look to the portraits. This is helpful because I can see exactly where the portraits will be going and plan the look and style accordingly. Or, if they don’t have the clothing that works with our photo shoot, I will online shop and send links for the pieces that I think will work best with our session.