Photographing extended family sessions can feel like a whole different ballgame compared to a standard family session—more people, more personalities, and often more chaos. These sessions can be a love/hate experience for photographers. Either you thrive on the challenge and enjoy capturing the beautiful connections between generations, or you’ve been burned before and feel tempted to swear them off completely. But with these tips for extended family photos, the experience can be just as rewarding and heartfelt as any other family session.
In this post, I’m sharing why I love photographing extended families and how I structure my sessions to keep them enjoyable, natural, and drama-free.
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My Best Tips for Extended Family Photos
1. Stay home.
When it comes to extended family sessions, I always advocate for doing the session at home or wherever everyone is staying if at all possible. Sometimes that means an Air B&B or a local Inn, but it still works in the same way. This instantly helps set a relaxed tone and eases the stress before the session that comes with trying to get a large group anywhere at the same time. If you have kids, you know that even being somewhere on time with 2 kids is a gamble, so make it a family of 14 with 3 generations and that’s a lot of pressure.
Plus, the home environment naturally offers opportunities for meaningful activities and and details that are unique to their time together. It’s one of the most crucial tips I can recommend for successful extended family photos.
If an at-home session isn’t possible, I look for a natural space with plenty of room for large group arrangements, like a grassy field or park with interesting features for posing in levels (think fences, low tree branches, or stone walls).
2. My Pricing Philosophy
I believe family is family no matter the size. That’s why I don’t charge extra per person or per family group. Instead, I focus on the session time and the overall experience. For larger groups, I often recommend my top package, which includes two hours of shooting, because it gives us more flexible time to capture all the breakdowns and candid play without feeling rushed.
Since extended family sessions are usually split among multiple parties, they’re often more than willing to invest in the longer session or higher price points, but require simplicity and convenience in terms of coordination and booking. With several families involved in the decision making process, the less decisions and tweaks I offer, the smoother the whole booking and planning process goes.
3. Balancing Posed and Candid Moments
A common challenge with extended family sessions is striking the right balance between posed group shots and candid, emotional moments. I try to start with classic group portraits and breakdowns of each family, along with other groupings like cousins together, core siblings together, kids with grandparents, etc. These are expected and valuable pieces of an extended family session, even if you’re known and being hired for the more candid, in between type of shots.
While I’m doing more posed portraits, I still keep the mood light and playful for a relaxed energy and expressions. There are intricate details of relationship going on all the time in these sessions, so I’m always noticing what’s happening in front of my camera, as well as around me in the waiting and transitions.
Once we’ve moved on from those more classic shots, for a majority of the session I encourage families to engage in familiar activities that we’ve talked about or planned beforehand. Families in my sessions have chosen to do things like yard games, preparing a meal together, or hang around a campfire. These activities help break the stiffness and lead to spontaneous, genuine interactions that are especially meaningful for families.
4. Navigating Group Dynamics
Extended families can come with complex dynamics, and sometimes tension is unavoidable. It’s key to approach these situations with empathy and maintain a calm, positive energy. I aim to keep the focus on the love, even when some members may be more reserved or hesitant, because everyone shows love differently.
If tension does arise, I do my best to gently guide the session – whether through conversation or activity – and keep the atmosphere circling around gratitude and joy.
Extended family sessions are inherently a bit unpredictable, but that’s where all the magic is! My approach is always to embrace the chaos rather than fight it. I focus on capturing timeless and genuine portraits alongside the small, intimate interactions. I feel like the more you can lean into the uniqueness of each session, the more memorable and heartfelt the final results become.
// Links mentioned //
If you’d like to see examples of extended family sessions I’ve photographed, check out the links below:
- A backyard large extended family session
- Extended family photos at home with all adults
- An extended family session at home (with Thanksgiving dinner + backyard baseball!)
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