5 Tips for Your Best Family Photos

Coordinating outfits, wrangling toddlers, finding the right location — family photos have a reputation for being stressful, and they've earned it. But most of that stress comes from a handful of avoidable mistakes. Here are the five things I tell every family before we shoot.

1. Coordinate, don't match

Matching white shirts and jeans had their moment. What photographs better is a palette: pick two or three colors that live well together and let everyone dress like themselves inside it. Texture — denim, knits, boots — reads beautifully on camera.

2. Schedule around the kids, not the calendar

A 6 PM session with a toddler who melts down at 5:30 is a gamble nobody wins. Tell me the rhythms of your crew and I'll build the session around them. A happy kid an hour before ideal light beats a miserable kid in perfect light, every time.

3. Don't ask the kids to perform

The fastest way to kill a child's real smile is to demand it. My approach: let them play, and let me work. The frames parents cry over are never the "say cheese" ones — they're the mid-giggle ones.

4. Trust the location to me

You don't need to know the perfect spot — that's literally my job. I keep a running list of locations around Amarillo and the canyon for every kind of light and season.

5. Relax — seriously

Your kids take their emotional cues from you. If you're loose, they're loose. Treat the session like an outing with a camera along, and the photos take care of themselves.

Want a stress-free family session? You bring the people. I'll handle everything else.