Monochromatic

Want the easiest choice? You can choose just one color! Choose a color that you love to wear and then coordinate everyone’s outfits around it. Or choose the color that everyone has in their closet.

Using one color makes things simple and keeps the focus on your lovely faces.

The family in this picture chose blue and then used lighter and darker shades of blue. They added a patterned shirt with blue.

To see what different shades of your color look like try this color wheel app.

Analagous

This is another fairly easy choice. It’s like monochromatic, but it adds another color or two.

Take a color you like such as blue, and find out what’s it’s neighbors are on the color wheel. Blue is neighbors with other shades of blue and purple and green.

The family in the picture used navy with violet and red as an analogous color scheme.

Try out different analogous color combinations with this color wheel. You can slide the circle around to choose your main color. Then click the NEXT button to see different color combinations such as analogous.

Complementary

If you want your clothing to stand out even more then you can try a complementary color scheme. Take a color you like and find out what its complement is on the color wheel. It’s the color across from it directly.

The family in the first picture is wearing navy. The complement for navy is a golden yellow. They’ve used a patterned shirt with both colors and a crew shirt with both colors. They also make use of neutrals with a light cream color, navy, and denim pants.

The family in the second picture is wearing pink and its complement light green. The little girls’ light green shirt stands out to my eye because they only used a little pop of that complmenentary color.

When balancing your main color and its complement you have a choice. For a bolder look like the family in the first example use the colors in roughly equal amounts. For a calmer look with a pop of color, try the second example and use the bold color just a little bit.

Try out complementary color combinations with this color wheel. You can slide the circle around to choose your main color. Then click the NEXT button to see different color combinations such as complementary.

Split Complement / Double Complement

A split complement palette will give you more colors to choose from. It also gives you a vibrant, colorful feeling.

To create this color combination, you choose one color such as blue and now instead of adding only its one complement you will instead add this complements’ neighbors on each side.

Let’s take blue for example. Instead of adding a red-orange complement, you’ll add orange and yellow.

The family in this example is wearing blue with orange and yellows too.

Neutral Colors

Another classic, easy color scheme is neutrals. A neutral color is one those that lacks color or has only a small amount.

Neutral colors include shades of brown, gray, white, light pinks, denim and black. For the most neutral, soft look avoid adding much black or navy.

Neutral colors are freebies for any color scheme you choose. You can go back and look at each of the examples and see all of the neutrals that the families added into their clothing. Using lots of neutrals is a great way to keep images feeling classic and timeless.

Your pants, shorts, shoes, sandals can be neutral colors. You can also choose shirts, sweaters, and accessories in neutrals too.

Tip #3 - Textures and Patterns are Great

You don’t have to worry about wearing only solids. Feel free to mix and match textures and patterns. You should probably stick to one or two patterns rather than several. If you stay within your color scheme it will all look great together.

If you don’t change up the textures and wear solid colors only then it can start to feel a bit too matchy like a uniform.

Tip #4 - Avoid Distracting Items

Avoid neon colors because they’re distracting and can cause weird color casts sometimes. Also try to use bright, bold colors sparingly to make an impact.

Avoid t-shirts with logos, graphics, and character faces. These can be fun for kids, but they will really attract attention away in your image. Make sure that’s what you’d want.

Large amounts of white will definitely draw attention in your image, but I think it works ok if you love wearing white.

Tip #5 - Dress Comfortably

Ideally, you want to feel great while taking pictures. If you or your kids don’t feel good then it tends to show in your pictures. It’s tempting to dress up little ones, but make sure they can handle it. I so wanted to dress up my tiny ones, but I knew they’d never go for it. Don’t forget to make sure your shoes fit your choice of location and are comfortable enough for getting around.