hoping for a miracle!!!

[carrbowl]

I'm going to see the family in a couple weeks. Trying to perform the miracle to get everyone together for a large family photo. I say large, but when you add them up..it's not that big!!! Just seems like it!! 20 people..I'm thinking of clothing options and trying to decide if I should have everyone wear the same color or divide families into different colors--i.e. one family wear white, one family wear black, one wear blue, etc.

Have you shot photos like this before, any samples? Any suggestions?

[ronocnikral]

we just did ours and there were only 12 of us. chaos.

we told each family to match. my SIL had some bizzare idea that different stripped shirts match...that's another story.

but, it seemed to work out well. between about 50 shots (weird lighting and the kids being turds), we got about 3 we thought were similar enough to steal the kids heads from one onto another (even though they don't know MJ, they seemed to be giving him a dance tribute during the pictures).

I like the idea of telling each family to coordinate (can be spunky). or you could go with the old Utah (where we are from) tradition, everyone wears a white top with dark jeans.

[venchka]

Don't overthink it. Very informal. Very relaxed. Maybe not even all together. Put them all together in Photoshop.

A real old fashioned collage could work.

See, telling folks to color coordinate doesn't work. There's one "SIL" in every crowd.

[carrbowl]

Originally Posted by venchka

Don't overthink it. Very informal. Very relaxed. Maybe not even all together. Put them all together in Photoshop.

A real old fashioned collage could work.

See, telling folks to color coordinate doesn't work. There's one "SIL" in every crowd.

Do you know my SIL??? Although there are 20 of us, the youngest kids are mine 14, 14, 13, and 10 and are used to being threatened during photos. My brother and I are both photographers, so I feel like we shouldn't get any dumb things like checked or stripes..watch me regret that comment!!!

[toverman]

Let 'em wear whatever they want, and then decide if you want to group smaller family units into smaller poses. You might even shoot the units separately (per Wayne). I'd do it this way: Mount the camera on a tripod encompassing the entire area, place family groups where you want them without too much overlapping of groups, merge 'em together with layers.

Although if you can get the lighting right, I'm all for putting everyone together at one time. "Family" isn't supposed to be an easy concept, it just is!

[ppcass]

Good luck. The largest group I have done is 360....but the small groups..like 20...have been by far the hardest!!!!!

[thehatguy]

If you're all related you probably know each other without having to wear uniforms.

John

[toverman]

Originally Posted by ppcass

Good luck. The largest group I have done is 360....but the small groups..like 20...have been by far the hardest!!!!!

The largest group I did was about 500, but it wasn't art ... I photographed an elementary school's entire student body from the roof. They were all wearing the same shirts, though!

[carrbowl]

nobody has shots to share??? dang, I thought this was a photo forum...cough em up!!!