You want what everyone else wants: a beautiful family portrait to hang on the wall. But, just the thought of it makes you want to run and hide. Think of what it takes to plan a family portrait session. You need to convince your family to go along, rearrange everyone's schedule, find a photographer, find a location, choose outfits and purchase them, make sure everyone looks good on the session day, make sure they are all on time and finally try and arrive on time, still looking good and have everyone in a good mood. That is enough to make even the most capable mother want to cry uncle.

Then there is all of the work after the session. You need to choose your favorite images, select the sizes you need, figure out where and how to display them and what frames you need. After all this, you still have to convince your husband to hang them on the wall.

The hardest part of family pictures is that there are too many decisions to be made. Life is busy as it is and adding something as complex as a family portrait is definitely overwhelming to a lot of people.

Here are 4 categories that will help break your family portrait experience into manageable pieces.

There are 5 main tasks to accomplish before the session in order to have a successful portrait. You need to coordinate your family's schedules, choose the photographer, date, location and what clothing you want to wear.
At Masterpiece Images we have a few ways we like to help. First of all, we have a Clothing and Location Consultation that we do (usually over the phone) where we talk about the pros and cons of different locations. We will help decide what type of look you would like then match a location to what you are looking for.

Another option we offer is Family Portrait Photo Safaris; several days each year. We choose the location and we schedule appointments all day at that location. As a bonus, we waive the session fee for those days. Our clients love this because they can either choose the location and have the date chosen for them or they choose the date and the location is chosen for them.

Many families find that using our Clothing Guide makes choosing your clothing a lot simpler.

Your main responsibilities on the day of the session are to get everyone ready, arrive on time for your session and make sure everyone is happy when you get there. No problem right? Easier said than done.
Remember, our main goal is to capture your family for who you are, not capture an unrealistic view of "perfection." It is more important for your family to be happy than to have every detail perfect. Keep this in mind and try to enjoy the journey.

There are a lot of things I can do, as your photographer, that you may not be able to do with your own children. If you are having struggles, do the best you can and let me help with the rest.Your main responsibilities on the day of the session are to get everyone ready, arrive on time for your session and make sure everyone is happy when you get there. No problem right? Easier said than done.

Remember, our main goal is to capture your family for who you are, not capture an unrealistic view of "perfection." It is more important for your family to be happy than to have every detail perfect. Keep this in mind and try to enjoy the journey.

There are a lot of things I can do, as your photographer, that you may not be able to do with your own children. If you are having struggles, do the best you can and let me help with the rest.

There will be more images than you can use from a family portrait session. So, your next challenge is to narrow down your favorites.

At this point, many photographers leave it to you to know all things. At Masterpiece Images we like to set up a preview appointment where we project your images on a large screen and go through them with you. We then discuss the possibilities of each image, the pros and cons of different images and what can be done to the images to polish them up.

Your display is the most important part of your family portrait session. It is extremely important to display your portraits in a way that you can enjoy them. Even the best image will not be enjoyed if it is displayed poorly.

We believe so strongly that the display is the most important part of your session that we offer a free appointment called an In-home Display Consultation. In this appointment, we come to your home and help look at the possible places your images could be displayed. We help to look at those places from an interior design perspective and identify which areas have the largest potential for impact. However, the thing most people love is that we bring sample sizes from small to large so you can see what sizes looks like before you order. All you have to do is see what looks good to you. It takes away any guesswork.

One bonus feature of all our family portrait sessions: we will come, at no charge, and install your portraits for you. We know that your to-do list is always super long and hanging your family portraits on the wall is not at the top of your list.

We have laser levels and special rulers that make the job quick and easy. Besides, we want you to enjoy your displays as soon as possible.

If you are trying to do everything yourself, we identified at least 16 major tasks you have to figure out on your own. With the help of Masterpiece Images, that number is reduced to 3. We can quite literally make your family portrait experience nearly 80% easier than trying to do it on your own.

If you would like to see for yourself how pleasant a family portrait experience can be, we would like to invite you to contact us about booking your next family portrait session with us!