Family Profile Portrait Tutorial

I’ve converted my regular weekly project 52 post into a family profile portrait tutorial because so many people have asked me how I set this image up. The prompt for Week 5 of my Project 52 was “Portrait: Black + White.”

But before I get into the tutorial I wanted to let you know that I’ve got a special surprise at the end of this post!  I’m taking part in a blog circle with some photographer friends of mine.  We’re linking to each other’s posts, so you can check out what they’re up to. This month, I’m linking to a fabulous child photographer in West London, who is sharing an in-studio sibling session (and you know I happen to have a soft spot for sibling photography).

Anyway, back to the family profile portrait tutorial…. I knew immediately the type of image I wanted to create. I’ve had this vision of a portrait of the profiles of my three boys for over a year and my thinking is I’d like to recreate this picture on an annual basis to see how they grow and change over time.

I set up the shot in my son’s old room. It has a darkish blue wall, blackout out shades and no furniture in it so I had space to work with even though it is a small room. I set up my OCF (off-camera-flash) on a light stand using a Godox S-type Bracket and attached a simple 33″ umbrella with black exterior and white interior.

I used a step stool for my boys to sit on and set up the light stand very close to the stool. Here is a pullback image of my room set up for this family profile portrait tutorial.

I took individual images of each of my boys one at a time. My 3 year old and 4 year old each sat on the top bar of the stool and my husband sat on the top seat. All of the lights were turned off in the room so that my Profoto A1 flash was the only light used to create the images.

Quick Tip: I wanted them all looking in the same spot and as you probably know, holding the attention span of a 3 year old can be a challenge, so if you are having trouble, you can use a phone or tablet and play a movie or something that they like to watch to keep their eyes focused to the spot that you want.

Camera Equipment + Settings

For this shot, I used a Canon 5d Mark IV camera body attached with a Sigma 50 1.4 lens and the Profoto Air Remote (to communicate with my flash off camera). You certainly don’t need this exact equipment but I wanted to be sure to give you the detail about everything that I used or did to create the image behind this family profile portrait tutorial.

I almost always shoot in manual mode on my DSLR. My settings for this shot were: f/11, 1/200 sec, ISO 100. White balance was set to Auto. If that sounds like a foreign language to you I get it, I was there once too! Be sure to leave a comment at the end of this post and let me know if you’d be interested in learning more about how to use your own DSLR. In the meantime, I totally recommend checking out the Clickin Moms forum as they have a TON of great tutorials and offer an incredible community.

So that is how I set up and took the images that were used to create the image that inspired this family profile portrait tutorial. If you would like to delve further into this and see how I merged the three individual images into a single final image you can get immediate access to the free editing video tutorial by clicking the button below.

Get The FREE Video Tutorial

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My Journaling + Project 52 Pocket Scrapbook Spread

This image did not begin with a family profile portrait tutorial in mind. It began by the Week 5 prompt for my project 52. With each image I take for my Project 52, I also journal about it. Both the image and the journaling are then included into a 6×8 pocket scrapbook album. Here’s what I wrote for my journaling related to this image:

This morning I was reflecting on how different my Super Bowl Sundays are in this current season of life than they were five years ago. For the first couple of years after Clayton was born, I desperately tried to cling to my love of football (especially fantasy football) and my Direct TV Sunday Ticket. But over the last few years it became harder and harder to prioritize the time I spent watching football over all of the other wonderful things taking place in my life on Sundays. This year (I can’t believe I’m admitting this) I didn’t even watch a single game. I saw glimpses here and there but there is no longer such a thing as “football day” in my life.

Do I miss it? If I’m honest, not really. I miss the trash talking and fun that I would have playing fantasy football with my dad but now my husband gets to experience that and it’s okay for me to walk away and let that be a thing that bonds them.

But I think the reason I haven’t noticed the absence of something that was such an important part of my life before is because that space has been filled with time spent at church and with my boys. And those things fill my heart beyond what any Super Bowl win ever did.

You can learn more about adopting a personal photography project and my Project 52 here.

Oh and don’t forget to follow along the blog circle.  There’s a group of five of us this month, and next up is my friend Annika from West London.  Click here to check out her blog post: child photographer in West London.

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