Family Photography Online Portfolio Website

Family Photography Online Portfolio Website

Having a professionally designed family photography website will help launch a family photography business successfully. We’ll show you how to get started.

Family photos are often cherished, displayed in homes, and sent to relatives, which is why showcasing your work as a family photographer and highlighting your professional skills is so essential when setting up your family photography website.

Whether you’ve been working in the family photography niche for some time now, or you’re just starting to build your photography business, today we’re diving deep into setting up your family photography website so you start booking clients ASAP. Let’s get started!

How To Start a Family Photography Business

Before you start building your portfolio website, you need to have all your ducks in a row with the business side of things. Without a proper business structure, you’ll struggle to attract clients. Not to mention, without that structure and focus, putting together a website that feels cohesive and professional is much more challenging.

Here are some of our best tips for starting your family photography business:

  • Nail your style – Some family photographers prefer to shoot more traditional family photos, while others are more inclined to shoot candid lifestyle photography. No one style is better than the other, but knowing which style suits your talents can help you book the right clients.
  • Develop a solid business plan – No matter what type of photography business you’re embarking on, having a strong business plan is key to your success. Some things you’ll want to cover in your business plan include marketing, services offered, pricing, etc.
  • Create a business name/brand identity – You want your brand identity to be consistent with the style of photography you’re offering. For instance, if you shoot candid, playful family photos, you can pick a more quirky business name, but if traditional family portraits feel more natural to you, a more generic name might be best.
  • Design marketing materials – Once you know the style of family photography you plan on shooting and you feel confident that you have a solid business plan in place, it’s time to start marketing your services. This can include anything from creating brochures to having business cards made. In our experience, though, one of the best marketing investments you can make in your photography business is having a professional website. Your website acts as your hub for your entire business, including the all-too-important portfolio (more on this soon).
  • Get yourself out there and start shooting! – While all of the above steps are essential to your success, you can’t have a thriving family photography business if you’re not actually getting out there and shooting family photos. Experience is one of the most important steps for building a professional portfolio that shows off your skills.

How To Make a Family Photography Portfolio

Once you have a solid business plan in place, you’ll want to start taking photos so you can build your portfolio, but how do you make a family photography portfolio if your experience is limited? This is where patience will come into play, but luckily for you, finding families who are looking for professional photos shouldn’t be too difficult.

Families are everywhere! Even within your own family, we’d venture to say you can find an aunt, a cousin, or even a sibling who would be happy to have photos taken of their immediate family. They get professional photos that they can cherish for a lifetime, and you now have images that you can use for your portfolio. It’s a win-win.

Plus, if you don’t have family members you can ask, you certainly have friends who have families. Think outside the box here. The images don’t necessarily have to be the traditional family portraits with kids. Perhaps you have friends who just adopted a puppy who you can try your family lifestyle photography out on?

While you do want to stick with setups and subjects that fit within the style of family photography you plan on offering, when you’re first starting out, thinking outside the box is one of the best ways to build your portfolio and show off your skills to potential clients.

Remember, without a portfolio, potential clients aren’t able to see your skills and style, and will be less inclined to book you, making your portfolio one of the great indicators of success in the family photography niche.

Family Photography Portfolio Templates: Which One To Use?

Before choosing which template to select for your family photography website, we highly recommend making a list of all your desired features. When selecting templates, you’ll likely be thinking about things:

  • aesthetics
  • categorizing and projects
  • price
  • ease of use
  • contact us page and forms

Keep this list handy when selecting your template.

Having said that, if you’re not sure about what you want your website to look like, or you’re not certain about which features will help you, we highly recommend taking the time to look through other family photographers’ websites.

This initial research into family photographers’ websites will not only provide you with inspiration for how you want your website to look, but it can also provide insight into what services family photographers are currently offering and how you can differentiate yourself.

Family Photography Portfolio FAQs

To most, family photography sounds relatively straightforward, but with the dynamics of families expanding to include more than your traditional nuclear family, this style has also expanded to showcase more than the standard family portrait photography that you might see hanging in your clients’ homes. 

Family photography can also include family newborn photography, photos of people with their pets, photos of husbands and wives, and even family lifestyle photography. 

Family lifestyle photography tends to be more candid and can show off everything from sibling interactions to mothers breastfeeding, but regardless of who you’re shooting or what they’re doing in the photo, family photography is all about capturing a group dynamic rather than a single person. 

If this sounds like the style of photography you do, or you’re interested in growing a photography business that specializes in this style, read on for all the best tips on setting up your family photography website and business.

A solid portfolio should be organized, easy to navigate, clear, and professional. Potential clients won’t take long to make up their minds about your work, so be sure your family portfolio is in tip-top shape with these tips. 

Go virtual – A portfolio that helps you book clients should, without a doubt, be housed on your family photography website. While word-of-mouth is an excellent way to book clients within family photography, clients still expect to be able to easily access and check out your work prior to booking you. Ensure this is possible by displaying your portfolio on your website. 

Highlight your best photos – When putting together your portfolio, you may be inclined to share every photo you’ve ever taken, but we want to discourage you from doing so. Instead, pick your very best photos, or the ones that you think show off your skills as a family photographer. Overwhelming potential clients with irrelevant photos can distract them from your talent. 

Keep it organized – Make it as seamless as possible for potential clients to view relevant photos of what they’re looking for. This is especially important if you specialize in multiple styles of family photography. For example, if you have a specialty in both family portrait photography and family newborn photography, on your website, be sure that these two categories are separated out. 

Showcase specialties – We’ve addressed separating out your work to show off different styles of family photography, but in some instances, you might even want to separate your work by the style of photography. If you feel you have a unique style that deserves special attention, adding an additional category might be beneficial.

When you’re choosing a family photography business name, you want to choose a name that is memorable for your clients. Regardless of your niche, a business name is critical to your business. Some photographers may choose to use their name, or think of a word or phrase that is meaningful to them. If you’re focused on only providing family photography service, you can choose to name your business with words that are related to the meaning of family.

Practice, practice, and practice – this will help to improve your family photography. If you’re just starting out as a family photographer, you can ask your own family or your friend’s family for a free session to brush up on your skills.

Ask them to move around, dance, lean on a wall, and just have a conversation with each other. You can also have them recreate intimate moments by having them play a game, make a meal together, or simply hug one another so you can capture their interaction. Taking candid family photos is all about the family having fun! Make your clients feel comfortable and it will help you to capture amazing family photographs.

Build Your Family Photography Portfolio Today

It’s never too early to start building your family photography website. Whether you already have a solid portfolio of relevant photos, or you’re still in those initial stages of gathering photos, having a professional website is key to your success.

Obtaining your template and building your website is one of the first—and easiest—jumping-off points for launching your family photography career.

With countless, professionally designed templates for you to choose from, Format is here to make sure you have a beautiful family photography website so you start your career off on the right foot.

Try it free to see what Format can do for you.

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