Prepare for Your Photoshoot: The Complete Checklist

Almost every client tells me some version of the same thing in the days before their session: they know roughly what to expect, but they are not entirely sure what they should actually be doing to prepare. It is a completely reasonable question. A photoshoot is not something most people do often, and the small decisions in the run-up — what to wear, when to arrive, whether to bring a spare outfit, how to sleep the night before — genuinely affect how the session feels and how the photographs turn out. None of it is complicated once you know what matters, and most of it takes very little effort if you spread it out over the week rather than trying to do it all the morning of. This checklist is the same guidance I send to every client who books a portrait, family, newborn, or headshot session with me, gathered into one place so you can work through it at whatever pace suits you.

One Week Before Your Session

The week before a photoshoot is when most of the practical preparation genuinely happens, and it is worth doing it early rather than leaving it to the last couple of days. Confirm your outfit choices first, then steam or iron them and hang them somewhere they will not get creased again. Travel creases in particular have a habit of sitting stubbornly in fabric, so if you are driving any distance to reach the location, hang the outfit up as soon as you arrive rather than leaving it folded in a bag until the last minute.

Re-read your booking confirmation properly rather than skimming it. Check the location, the arrival time, and where you are meant to park — some of the locations I use have straightforward car parks, others involve a short walk from a layby or a residential street, and knowing that in advance means you are not working it out under time pressure on the morning itself. If anything about the directions is unclear, this is the week to ask rather than the morning to guess.

This is also the week to avoid anything drastic to your appearance. A significant new haircut, a bold new hair colour, or an experimental new skincare product are all better tried well before or well after the session, not in the days immediately preceding it. Skin in particular can react unpredictably to new products, and a session is not the moment to discover that a new moisturiser does not agree with you. Familiar routines photograph better than fresh experiments.

The Day Before

Sleep and hydration make more difference to how someone looks in photographs than almost anything else, and both need a full day's notice to actually help. The most visible difference between a well-rested subject and a tired one is in the eyes and the skin — not a difference of attractiveness, simply a difference of visible energy, and it shows up clearly in portraits in a way that is very hard to correct afterwards. Go to bed at a reasonable hour, drink water through the day, and treat the evening before as part of the preparation rather than an afterthought.

Lay out your full outfit the night before — not just the main pieces but the accessories, the shoes, the bag, anything you plan to carry or wear. Morning-of decisions about which shoes go with which outfit, or a frantic search for a missing accessory, create a low hum of stress that is entirely avoidable and that often shows in the first few minutes of a session before everyone settles.

It is also worth avoiding anything unfamiliar to eat or drink the evening before, particularly anything that has previously caused bloating or a skin reaction. This is not about restriction for its own sake — it is simply that the day before a photoshoot is not the moment to test how your body reacts to something new.

The Morning of the Session

Eat breakfast, even if you do not usually. Low blood sugar produces low energy, and low energy reads on camera as a flat or subdued mood, regardless of how someone actually feels. A proper breakfast is one of the simplest and most effective things you can do on the morning of a session.

Leave earlier than you think you need to. Traffic, parking, and simply finding the right entrance to a location are the most common sources of a stressful start to a session, and none of them are within your control once you are already running late. Being five or ten minutes early gives you a moment to settle, check your reflection, and arrive at the actual start of the session calm rather than flustered. If you are travelling with children, build in extra time again on top of that — getting everyone dressed, fed, and out of the door on schedule with young children rarely goes exactly to plan, and a buffer removes the pressure.

If it is a hot day, or if you are travelling by public transport, consider travelling in comfortable separate clothing and changing into your session outfit on arrival rather than wearing it for the whole journey. Arriving in an outfit that is already slightly crumpled or damp from the commute undoes some of the ironing effort from earlier in the week.

What to Wear and What to Bring

For most portrait, family, and couple sessions, I recommend building an outfit around soft, muted, or neutral tones rather than bright primary colours or busy patterns. Cream, camel, sage, dusty blue, warm grey, and soft terracotta all photograph beautifully and tend to sit well together if multiple family members are being photographed at once, so no one outfit fights for attention against another. Avoid large printed logos or text on clothing, which date photographs quickly and pull the eye away from faces, and be cautious with very bright white, which can read as stark against natural outdoor backdrops.

A small bag with touch-up essentials is worth having on hand for any session running over an hour: a lipstick or tinted balm, a pressed powder or blotting papers for midday shine, a small hairbrush, and water. For sessions that involve any walking — woodland portraits, riverside family sessions, or countryside couple shoots — comfortable footwear matters more than most people expect. Heels and unbroken-in shoes on uneven ground are uncomfortable at best and genuinely limiting at worst; flat boots or trainers that suit the outfit are almost always the better choice, with a second smarter pair to swap into for a handful of standing shots if you want them.

For newborn and family sessions specifically, I usually send a separate, more detailed guide after booking, covering coordinating (not matching) outfits across the family, what to bring for a baby who may need a mid-session feed or nappy change, and simple ways to keep older siblings comfortable and cooperative through the appointment. For corporate headshot sessions, the guidance shifts again — solid, professional-toned clothing that will not date quickly on a website or LinkedIn profile for several years, avoiding very busy patterns that can shimmer strangely on camera, and bringing a couple of alternative tops if the brief calls for more than one look.

Preparing Children for a Session

If children are part of the session, the preparation that matters most is not really about clothing or hair — it is about managing expectations and energy. Children who are told a photoshoot is going to be a big, exciting, camera-flashing event often arrive already slightly anxious or over-stimulated. Children who are simply told they are going somewhere nice for a walk, or to play in a particular spot, tend to arrive relaxed, and relaxed children photograph far better than performing ones.

Try to schedule the session around a time of day when your child is naturally at their best rather than pushing against a nap time or a hungry, overtired window. A short, well-timed session with a well-rested toddler will produce better images than a longer one squeezed in against their natural rhythm. Bring a small snack and a drink regardless of session length — a hungry child is a difficult subject to photograph, and a five-minute pause for a biscuit part-way through often resets the whole session.

Finally, resist the urge to instruct children constantly to smile or look at the camera during the session itself. I will handle direction as needed, and some of the best images from any family session come from moments where a child is simply being themselves — caught mid-laugh, mid-run, or looking at a sibling rather than at the lens.

On the Day: A Short Recap

If you take nothing else from this checklist, the essentials are: sleep well and hydrate the night before, eat a proper breakfast, leave with time to spare, wear an outfit in soft or neutral tones that has been ironed and hung rather than folded, bring comfortable shoes if any walking is involved, and pack a small touch-up bag if the session is longer than an hour. Everything else on this list is refinement around those basics, useful but not essential if time is tight.

None of this preparation needs to feel like homework. Spread across a week, it amounts to a handful of small, practical steps — steaming an outfit, packing a bag, getting an early night — rather than one stressful checklist to complete the morning of. The aim of all of it is simply to remove the avoidable friction, so that on the day itself you can arrive, relax, and let the session be about the people in front of the camera rather than the logistics around them. If you have a session coming up and want the tailored preparation guide for your specific shoot, or if you have not booked yet and want to talk through what a session with me would involve, please get in touch and I will send everything you need well ahead of the day.