What not to wear

This read is a little spin-off on what to wear to a session. I am going into depth about what color cast is.

What is a color cast? To me, color cast is when unwanted color bounces off an object and onto your subject. For example, I have the yellow color cast circled in red in the picture to the left. The sun is hitting the yellow shirt, and the yellow is reflecting onto the skin. I am a visual person, and honestly, I feel like I am poor with words. So that's why I have this image to give you a visual of the color cast. I hope this gives you an understanding of the color cast.

I knew I wanted to write this blog as soon as I was editing these pictures. I am going to give a few examples of what color cast is. This blog is a reminder for me. The first time I made this mistake, I didn't know I made this mistake until I was editing. When I was zooming in to make sure the eyes were in focus, I saw my reflection. Guess what I was wearing. I was wearing a neon yellow shirt (really, Vanessa!) What was I thinking? From that day forward, I make it a point to wear white or neutral color to a session.

The picture above is the image I was looking at when I saw my reflection. The photograph is unedited. You can see a yellow cast on the lower part of her face. I was going for a warm sunset glow, so yellow cast from my shirt didn’t bother me as much as seeing myself in her eyeball wearing a yellow shirt. The image to the right is what I saw when I zoomed in and said REALLY!

Now, you might ask. Did you learn your lesson, Vanessa? No. I didn't. One day I saw my sister in this beautiful flowing ORANGE dress. I told her, "you have to wear this dress to your maternity session." It will be perfect. On the day of the session, it was everything I envisioned it to be. The dress was beautiful, flowing, excellent. Then it was time to edit and guess what I saw. ORANGE. All I could say was REALLY. It was my fault I asked her to wear the dress. Thank goodness it’s an easy fix in light room. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from this session.

When people ask what I should wear to a session, I say wear what you are comfortable in, not neon or bright colors. With that being said I love the way yellow looks on my girls I think it makes their eyes pop. So the point is to do better than me. Don't wear neon or bright colors like Red, Bright Yellow, Neon Orange, Neon Pink, Neon Green, and Bright Colors. Neutral colors will photograph better like gray, brown, tan, dark green.

Need more information? Click below to read my Pose Guide to Help Choose Your Families Outfit.