Tips for Doing Family Photos with a Large Group

Have you ever done family pictures with your whole extended family?

It's a lot of work, but it's always worth it.

It's become a tradition that we do family pictures with my whole side of the family every other year.  I'm usually the one to get everything organized and then each mom takes care of their own family. 

There are 18 of us from age two to my dad.  My cousin is a photographer and we gift my mom a photo session gift card usually for Mother's Day that year.  We let my mom pick the color scheme of typically 3 or 4 colors and then each family shops for clothes they like within that color palette.  It always comes together nicely after a lot of work (scheduling, making sure everyone is healthy, hoping the weather cooperates and finding cute outfits for everyone).  We do them in the Fall so that we all end up with Christmas card photo options.  Our system works great for us!

These are my favorite pictures yet.  I love the colors and the textures for Fall.  We have talked about doing different locations, but doing them in my parent's back yard is easiest.  We plan them for the golden hour of the day and then my mom cooks dinner for everyone afterwards.

 The whole cousin crew!  I love seeing all 10 lined up from oldest to youngest.

These cute girls are all close in age!

My parent's Christmas card photo.

The OG Heilmans.  I'm the oldest, my sister is the middle and my brother is the baby of the family.

Mom and Dad / Mimi & Papaw

My cousin shoots our individual family photos, head shots of all the kids, whole group and some special request groups like grand kids and grand parents or all the guys and all the girls.  It takes less than an hour to do the whole group.  These head shots are almost always way better than their school pictures.  They just seem more natural and comfortable.

Our Christmas card photo and my favorite family photo of the session.  Leo was not super happy to be taking photos so we let him grab a stick to make him happy.  It perfectly captures his busy self.

I need to get some big prints printed soon!

Let me know if you have any questions about organizing family photos.  It's a labor of love and it's definitely worth the effort.