Hardins in the Hills: Family photo shoot

Hooray!! Thanks to Ben Roberts (more on his work here), we finally have beautiful family photos. We went just a mile from our house, to the gorgeous park where Everett and I got married. It was so wonderful to be able to look back on how much things have changed in the past four years.

Everly was an absolute HAM, to the surprise of no one. She loves being in front of a camera and knows how to pose and smile and give the photographer lots to choose from.

I love how everything turned out, so I thought I'd share our tricks for getting everything to go smoothly and look beautiful.

choose a good time of day

Your photographer should be able to tell you when this is, but time of day can make or break your lighting. We went out on an overcast day, so the lighting was bright but diffused (photographer's favorites!)

bring props from home

I'm not one for a bunch of cheesy props, but a great hack to make sure that the prints will match your decor perfectly is to just bring some of the decor with you! We brought my collection of blankets from the living room, and ended up just using the quilt.

be full (of food and coffee and laughter)

It's a whole lot easier to get a toddler to cooperate if they are well fed and rested. Something we did to keep her giggling was to reserve a slightly forbidden word (ours was poop) to have our photographer say when he needed a giggle.

tailor your location to your family

Everly is two years old. Verrrrry two. A heavily posed indoor shoot would have been chaotic. Instead, she got to run and play outside; this kept her energy positive and her attitude totally manageable.

do your hair/makeup 25% better/more elaborate than you usually would

A low pony won't translate well on film. Big hair tends to look natural in photos, as well as sweet braids on little girls. I wanted a mix of up and down for Everly, but I went all in on my own hair with hairspray and curls. It was a lot more work than I usually put into it, but it was worth it. Maskcara has a wonderful blog post about photo shoot makeup you can find here.

wear layers

This is especially awesome for cooler weather. In real life, Everly and I looked a little crazy with all of the layers we had on (including winter coats), but we were able to be as comfortable as possible with a lot of texture and variety in our clothes. We could scrunch and ruffle and play with our clothes without worrying about messing them up (in fact, the messier the better).