Family Portraits At Stanford's Arizona Cactus Garden

Family Portraits At Stanford’s Arizona Cactus Garden – How To Keep Posing Fun For The Whole Family

I believe that family portraits should be fun, candid, and feel unposed. When everyone is having fun and enjoying each other, the photos are natural and genuine. The Arizona Cactus Garden is one of my favorite places to take family portraits in the evening time. Here are some of the fun and candid family portraits at Stanford’s Arizona Cactus Garden. As well as four ways I like to keep posing fun for the entire family.

Keep The Session Conversational

When I am taking family portraits, I love talking and interacting with my clients. Getting you and your family to interact while posing can create some fun and genuine expressions. For example, I may ask one of the family members to tell me who would win in a dance off. Capturing everyone’s expression as they answer this kind of question will typically give a much better expression than if I just say “1-2-3-CHEESE.”

Giving Options on Posing And Being Flexible

Another way that I keep posing fun for the entire family is by being flexible. Especially with kids. One of the ways that I like to do this is by letting them choose certain aspects of the pose. For example, I may ask one of the kids if they want to sit or stand for the next pose. Or I may ask them to pick the spot where we take the picture. Getting kids involved will ensure that they have fun during the session. It also opens them up to suggest other poses that will generate a great smile.

Making Everyone Feel Comfortable Enough To Be Silly

Perhaps the best way that I keep posing fun for everyone is to make everyone feel comfortable to be themselves. Allowing people to be silly can leave room for some fun poses. Often times, people will say, “I just want to get one good picture of our family.” We will definitely get more than one good picture. But I also like to incorporate a mixture of fun and candid images with the traditional posed family portraits.

Trying New Poses

Last but not least, I like to try new things with poses. Sometimes they work well and sometimes they don’t go as planned. But sticking to the same, straight forward poses is not as fun as trying something new! Sometimes I come up with new poses on the fly. And other times I get great posing ideas from my clients 🙂

Hopefully these fun and candid family portraits at Stanford’s Arizona Cactus Garden have given you some ideas for your own family portrait session. Thanks!