Family Photo Session + Do it yourself + Lifestyle + Oak Park, California + Photo Shoot
Jenny Puranen photography company specializing in lifestyle Family, Fine Art School Portraits, Lifestyle, Editorial High
School Senior portraits & Fashion, editorial Photography
©Images by Jenny Puranen

Hey Friends! So here we are. 8 weeks into working from home, homeschooling our kids, spending every waking second with out families.

No matter what your situation is you are not thinking about spending a ton on professional photography right now. Heck you probably don't even want to think about being in front of camera! The excuses now are not that far off from the normal reasons why you don't want your photo taken.

KEEP READING!!!! I have a solution for all of this and I am here to help.

 I am here to tell you how to take amazing family photos for FREE in your backyard!

If you love the results but hate that you need your roots touched up or you need to lose 5 pounds. I can help you with all of it. I will retouch your photos for you and fix all these little problems

 Well, first thing's first! Lets get you taking amazing photos of your family in your backyard.... BONUS I can tell you how to do it in less than 5 minuets! Lets get started!

First grab that camera or self phone with a self timer.

Set that for a 10 second delay.

Look around the house for a tripod or selfie stick that doubles as a tripod. No Tripod? No problem!!!! I have been known to grab a table and stack of books, whatever you have will work!

Just make sure to bring that camera up to eye level of the tallest person!

Next lets talk Flow posing.

You want to have a game plan going into this!

  Here are the basics when it comes to poses

**You want a full family standing shot,

**a full family seated shot,

**sibling shots

**then a photo of each child by themselves.

Ok lets do this!

Take the photos an hour or less before sunset, find a spot in the shade, and keep the background basic.

Pose #1: full family standing.

Pose your family before you run to clock the self timer.

The basics are put the tallest child in front of mom.

Mom also angle yourself into dad's shoulder do not stand square to the camera.

Most importantly is everyone should be touching, hugging or holding hands. Just look connected!

Ok you got it!

quickly transition into the full family seated shot

Pose #2 Family seated

Everything is essentially the same as the first except I like to make this photo more relaxed.

I am tickling my son, getting some giggles and having the photo not look as posed.

Have fun with it and remember try and keep that background pretty basic

Pose #3 The sibling shot

These can be tough.

My advice is to have your kids seated. If they are standing they tend to lean into each other and knock each other over. It gets frustrating pretty quick trust me.

Have them seated next to each other and connected.

I like to play games while I am grabbing the shots. My kids are suckers for "don't you smile at me."

Dad can help too, just have him draw their eyes to camera level. It does no good if he is off to the side drawing their eyes and attention in that direction.

I like to have them look at each other during this shot too. You can try things like touch noses or touch ears. Pretty much anything you do that gets them giggling will get you a few cute shots

Pose #4: Individual child shot

Finally finish up with a quick photo of each child then bam your done! Less than 5 minuets.

For Single child shots they are pretty much over it at this point. The pressure is off since you already got the golden family shots.

Let them be themselves. Let them be silly and crazy or calm and quiet.

I love capturing my kids real personalities

So here is the fun part.

Say you love your photos but want to tweak a few details.

For $5 per photo i can clean up and edit your photos any way you wish!

Think of me as your very own covid fairy godmother.

Roots showing? Gone!

5 pounds around the mid-section? It was never there!

Brad Pitt instead of your husband? Say I DO!

lol ok so that last one was just to see if you were paying attention.

I hope this little tutorial helped. Feel free to reach out to me with comments, questions, or just let me know this worked for you! If there are any more tutorials you would like to see let me know!!!

Feel free to share this or any of my BLOG posts!!

Jenny Puranen Photography services Oak Park, California, Thousand Oaks, California, West Los Angeles, California, Agoura Hills , California and surrounding areas 
including but not limited to Malibu, Calabasas, West Lake Village and all of the Conejo Valley, Ventura County and Los Angeles County
 Oak Park, California Family Photographer | Agoura Hills, California Fine art school Photographer | Oak Park, California High School Senior Photographer | Westlake Village, California High School Senior and Family Photographer | Los Angeles, California Lifestyle and Editorial High School Senior Photographer | 
Proudly serving Oak Park, California | Los Angeles, California | Malibu, California | West Los Angeles, California | Thousand Oaks, California

Please email me regarding details to plan your session in The Los Angeles  area. Now booking
 2020 sessions.