Portraits by Angie Lane Celebrate Life Blog

I’ve had a lot of requests for ideas on what to wear to the Mustard Field Limited Edition sessions so I decided it was time to revive my Fashion Friday posts! There are so many options on what to wear to a session like this — you can be dressy or casual and there are so many color combinations that would look great! The only color I would stay away from is green. Here are a couple of other tips:

* Wear layers — who knows how warm or cool it will be? Plus layers look great!

* Consider covering your legs and feet —  if you’re going to put your children in skirts or dresses, perhaps they can wear leggings and boots/rainboots so they don’t get poked with stickers in the grass.

I only have a couple of  sessions left, so if you’re interested in booking one, give me a call or send me an email as soon as possible!

OK, the Beach Limited Edition Sessions are coming up in just a couple of weeks so I thought I would do one last Fashion Friday dedicated to beach portraits (although these outfits would work for other sessions as well).

OK, I know it’s not Friday, but I’ve missed the last couple of Fridays and I’ll probably miss this Friday as well. I’ve had a lot of people asking me recently about what their family should wear for our upcoming beach pictures. I”ll probably focus on family beach pictures a couple more times before our event, but here’s what I found this week. (By the way, Old Navy is having a great sale!!). All of these outfits are from Old Navy this week.

This week I chose several outfits that look great for a single child. A couple of the outfits from Boden show a winter coat, scarves etc. It just goes to show that when the weather gets cold, you can still do really cute portraits — just get a classic looking coat! (Not that we have to worry about it getting cold here any time soon!)

I was at Old Navy yesterday and saw the adorable plum courduroy jacket posted below and it inspired this edition of Fashion Friday. I LOVE fall clothes. I sometimes wish our autumn weather was a little cooler so we could take advantage of all the cute sweaters, boots, jackets etc. And then I realize I’m crazy! I love the combination of plum and navy blue so I did several outfits in those colors for girls and boys (well, just Navy for the boys). Oh and by the way, Old Navy is having a huge sale right now!

The combination of brown and blue is one of my favorite color combos for family portraits. Here is one example of outfits for a family session (probably the hardest sessions to find clothing for!). A couple of tips when shopping for clothes: whatever skin is exposed will draw the eye right to it. So I usually suggest wearing 3/4 or long sleeves for adults (especially mom). And the same goes for legs — shorts don’t usually look great in portraits unless they’re long shorts. I would suggest capris or long pants (or skirts) for girls and mom and either long cargo-type shorts for dad and boys or long pants.

So far, most of my fashion Friday posts have focused on a single child. So this week I decided to show some outfits that would look good on siblings. One way to make choosing outfits for siblings a little bit easier is to choose a dress or a shirt or something that you love and then choose other pieces of clothing that coordinate with the print on the shirt or dress. Portraits look better when the people in them coordinate, but aren’t too “matchy-matchy.”

Well I have tons of ideas for this week for beach portraits. There are really tons of things that look great at the beach. One thing to keep in mind is that the colors at the beach are fairly subdued (especially in N. Cal where we often have fog) so I usually suggest to people to wear something colorful (otherwise you run the risk of having grey ocean, grey sky, brown sand and  . . . colorless clothes).

When planning portraits at the beach think of what you have that might be “out of the box” so to speak — (like the purple frilly dress from Chasing Fireflies). That’s not something you would usually wear to the beach, but the contrast between the frilly dress and the outdoorsy look of the beach looks awesome. Right now many clothing stores are sending out catalogs with pictures done at the beach. Take note of what the models are wearing and how it looks in the photograph.

Well this is a day late because I was having internet connection problems yesterday. Today I wanted to focus on some really fun hand-made items. If you are not familiar with the addiction that is etsy, then you’re in for a real treat! Etsy is this great online market where people sell ALL KINDS of handmade items. I’m not joking (and neither is my wallet) when I say it’s an addiction! To shop on etsy just go to www.etsy.com and then do a search for an item or seller etc. I listed the names of the sellers next to the items I’m showing to make it easier if anyone wants to find their shop. 

I haven’t found many cute boy items so I’m just going to stick to girls today. One style that I think is so cute is to pair some of these cute tops/dresses with jeans or denim capris that have a cuff and plastic rain boots or ballet flats.  And another super cute idea is to pair funky leg warmers with tutus or petti skirts (or denim etc.) Who knew leg warmers would have a comeback?! And finally I am showing some of my favorite crocheted hats (many of you may have seen the ones I have).

(Oh, FYI, I did not take the photographs on these pages — they are from the etsy buyer’s listings.)

Fashion Friday is a new feature I’m going to start on my blog. Choosing what to wear for a session is probably the most stressful aspect of doing the photoshoot! So to help give you some ideas of things that work well,  I will post ideas I’ve seen in catalogs of outfits that are great for photoshoots. This week I am posting ideas for girls and boys. These outfits will work well in an Urban or Country setting. I’m listing the store where I found these items, but you can find cute outfits all over — these are just to give you an idea of things that would look good.