How to choose your outfits for a photo session
I'm guessing you've thought about colour theory for all of zero seconds throughout your day today, but I'm willing to bet that you are aware of it more often than you think.
The best analogy to demonstrate this, is with music. Play a C Major chord on a piano, (C, E and G.) It sounds lovely. Now play an E-flat chord, (E-flat, G and B-flat.) Again, a very pretty chord. Now play them at the same time. Not so pretty, is it? Colour works the same way.
Here's a story of Tim and Sara separately recording a song together. One day Sara goes into a recording studio. She sits down at a piano and plays a melody that she likes. The producer records her song and plays it back for her. It's very beautiful.
The next day, Tim goes into the studio and while being unaware of what Sara recorded previously, he plays his own composition on the piano. Again, the producer records it, and it's beautiful.
The producer then mixes both of their recordings together and sends them a mix titled, Sara & Tim ~ "Our Song" They are excited and eager to listen to their masterpiece. Can you guess what it sounded like? This is what choosing your outfits is like.
First Step
The first thing to consider is the environment in which you will be photographed. Your clothing choices should be appropriate for the setting. A red ball gown and high heels would not work on a hiking trail. Maybe an urban setting like big city streets or a theatre.
You don't necessarily need to dress up, but your colours need to work together.
Something Fun To Do
Go to your closet and choose an outfit for each of you - something for her and something for him. Lay your clothes out on your bed. Don't forget to include shoes, belts, hats, scarves, purses and any other accent pieces you like. Turn off all the lights in your room so that the only light is natural light coming from the window. Now take a picture with your phone and email that pic to yourself.
My example doesn't include any female clothing because it's just me, but you should definitely include items from both of your wardrobes.
Go to your computer and save the picture to your desktop. Next, go to the Adobe Colour Wheel tool.
When you first open the colour wheel, it might look similar to this.
Click on the "Extract Theme" link in the top left corner.
Drag your picture onto the space in the middle of the frame.
As soon as your image loads, five dots will appear, automatically positioned over the image with the most difference in pixel colour. I placed a tennis ball and a small cloth bag in the scene to demonstrate how discordant the colour swatch is.
You can click and drag any dot over an area of your picture that represents an article of clothing. I dragged one dot over the belt and another over the pink shirt. It kind of works, but a rule of thumb is to relegate the brightest colour to a small accent piece.
So I moved the dot from the pink shirt to the burgundy T-shirt. The result is a pleasing swatch. Try on your clothes and take another pic of yourselves together and then place that pic in the Colour Tool. Move the dots around to find those outliers.
A Few Examples
My intent here in using these two examples, isn't to criticize anyone for their choices, but rather to demonstrate the impact of discordant colours within a scene. You don't need to have the eye of a graphic designer or photographer. For the most part, I think this colour thing can be as intuitive as music. I'll leave it there.
