How to prepare the pictures for the portraits when there is more than one kid in the family?

I have been asked so many times about this matter!

Making several portraits of brothers and sisters with different ages that will be placed on the same wall, or room…How to prepare the process?  Which pictures to chose? At what ages?

These questions are recurrent and even more important when you decide to work with a portrait artist living abroad, and your only connection is through the Internet…

This would be a common example of a message with those doubts;

-Hello Graciela!! Your work is absolutely beautiful!! I have been wanting to have my children’s portraits done for a while now and just had a few questions for you! I currently have 3 children (ages 5,3,1) and was wondering what people do for multiple children? I was thinking of having them each done at the age of 5? Not sure if we will have any more children so, wasn’t sure if I should have them done at their respective ages? 

I recently answered a client regarding this matter. Trying to explain which options we have, and then I thought that it would be very interesting as a post for my blog since it is not the first time I have been asked for this.

Some parents prefer to make the portraits of the same age and some others respecting the correlative ages. It really depends on how you want to organize this matter…If you are not in a hurry and want to take your time, doing the process as a long-term project, you can paint the portraits one by one, starting with your oldest.

In a few years, you can continue with the second one and later, finish with the third, the youngest child… Many of my clients like to do it this way. Time runs so fast!!!

Sometimes the kids are wearing the same special dress or outfit as their sisters and brothers, or even parents before them. This makes a strong visual connection between the portraits. I´m always glad to hear good news from my old clients, celebrating and sharing with me a new member of the family…taking and sending me some new pictures to create her/ his portrait like the ones before….

In this case is important to take the pictures the same way (as possible) as the last images that were taken before…. looking for similar lighting, composition, and color pallet.

Another option is to make all the portraits at once. Respecting the correlative ages of the children.

In this case, you can prepare and take pictures of the kids, especially for the occasion. Dressing them similar, looking for a beautiful place with some interesting background, will do half of the work! It is important to take a lot of pictures on the same day and with the same light conditions! The best will be to hire a professional photographer, or, if you are taking the pictures by yourself, to use at least a good camera. Always better than a phone!!

This way we can make the portraits look fantastic together, and the fact that the kids are at different ages, but they keep the same “atmosphere”, makes the work even more interesting and rich! A similar light and background will help to create portraits that can perfectly work as a group or body of work.

In case you think you could expect another member of the family, I would suggest you do the portraits one by one…keeping the same style of pictures as a base.

There is another situation I would like to add. (Also, a very common one.)

This is when the children are already grown up.

In this case, we can make the portraits from their actual ages, taking good pictures of them as teenagers which is really powerful work to do…

Or we can search in the old archives for photos and try to find pictures from similar young ages.

This is always the most difficult option …You must go deep in the past and make a selection of pictures that will look well together as a group…. But it worth it, and, as always, I will be happy to help!