How do I take my own Front Door Portrait? | London Family Photographer

You’ve seen them all over social media: Front door pictures, Porch portraits, Front steps projects (call them what you like), these photos of families standing outside their front doors have become a popular way to document this crazy time we are currently living in.

But you don’t necessarily need a photographer to capture one of these iconic photos for you. Infact you can easily set one up on your own. And as an added bonus, it is a GREAT way to have some fun and kill some time.

So….

Here’s how to rock your lockdown portrait

1. It’s all about the light

You are going to get the best portraits when you and your front door are in shade. For this reason, I took our photos in the morning.

After midday there is direct, strong sunlight shining on our front door. As well as making everyone squint unattractively at the camera, it also casts very strong and unflattering shadows on faces (and also makes the wrinkles I am currently sporting stand out even more!)

So, shade is your friend.

If you are photographing indoors (if you live in a flat), you might want to use your flash, if it is really dark.

2. The technical stuff: How to set up a your camera or phone to take a front door portrait

I used a tripod for my photos, but if you don’t have one, then you’ll need a flat surface to balance your camera or phone on. You can use a chair and a stack of books, to balance your camera on.

If you are using a phone, you’ll need to sandwich it upright between two books, with the camera facing the door (just incase that wasn’t already obvious!)

Get your family (or one member) to stand infront of the door to set focus. If you are on your own, you can use a chair or broom or mop to set your focus. Just place your object in where you will be standing.

If you have an interval timer on your camera, this is where it is going to come in useful! There is very handily one on my Canon 5D mk IV, so I set it to take 10 photos every 5 seconds.

If you don’t have an interval timer, you could always use the timer, there is one on every camera and phone app that I have seen - I always set mine to 10 seconds delay. As an added bonus my kids love the countdown, and I always try and be a bit silly about getting into place on time!

PHONE USERS YOU ARE GOOD TO GO! SKIP TO THE NEXT STEP

CAMERA USERS: What Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO should you use for your front door portraits?

If you are taking your photos with a phone or point and shoot camera, you do not need to worry about this bit.

But for camera-users:

You’ll want a fairly narrow Aperture to make sure you hit focus. Mine was set to f3.2, but I did have a few focus issues. If I can convince my family to do this again, I’ll probably go fo f4 or f5.6.

It was a bright sunny day when I took these, so my ISO was set to 250. And I wanted a nice fast shutter speed to rule out motion blur - I was able to get 1/800 with my Aperture and ISO settings.

If you live in a flat and are taking your photos indoors, you may find you need a much higher ISO to get a good exposure. Start at 800 and work up as needed.

3. What should we wear?

We’ve reached the point in the lockdown where most of our wardrobe is now living in the washing basket, which we can’t be bothered to empty!

So I basically picked out a dress I knew was flattering on me and then tried to make sure that what the rest of my family was wearing didn’t clash too badly with my brightly coloured dress (lets get real here, we all know who needs to look the best in these photos, right?!).

If you would like some bona fide style tips on how to rock your photo shoot, here is my handy guide on how to co-ordinate your wardrobe

4. How do we pose?

If at all possible, you’ll want to frame yourselves in the door, so try and stand close together. Wrap your arms around one another and hug (if you have bigger kids, you could get them standing infront of you with your arms hugging around them). If you have smaller kids, pick them up.

Full disclosure: My kids did not want to participate in this mini photoshoot, so we made it fun for them by popping our son on my husband’s shoulders. I then picked up my little girl. And we got them giggling by spinning around really fast and then cuddling together just as the camera fired.

Admittedly this was a hit and miss process! But it did get them laughing and giggling, and we got some photos I am really happy with!

5. Find the fun!

The more ridiculous the better!

It’s entirely possible that after SEVEN weeks of lockdown, we have lost the plot. But I decided to go for the ridiculous and dress up in an accurate approximation of what our daily lives REALLY look like.

So yes, I CAN sometimes be found lazing around in the sunshine in my pyjamas with a good book and a bottle of wine.

Do we have a daughter or a Gruffalo’s Child in this house?! I’m no longer sure…

Does my husband sometimes throw on a shirt and tie to take a work call ,still in his exercise shorts??? Well no, but he said I could choose what he’d like to wear, so I opted for funny :)

Do we often lose a random child, and not notice they are missing for hours on end?! Erm… not really!

Actually, my son had ENOUGH by this stage, so I bribed his participation with a lolly and just let him zoom around infront of us on his scooter. Sometimes he was in the frame… sometimes not! Unfortunately none of the photos that include him, are in focus, so I didn’t bother to show those photos here.

Why don’t you give it a go? I’d love to see what you come up with! Come and find me on my Photography Facebook Group page. We’ll be working on our front door portraits all of next week. Come and join the fun!