How to Create a Portrait Session Mood Board

Let's break down the anatomy of mood boards.

• ​Color Palette / Scheme

When deciphering what your scheme is, consider the look and feel of your entire session to be. You don't want your session to be a mix-match of so many colors it's difficult to have a central focus as to where to look. Most photographers will tell their clients to consider the season. Is it the fall season with rich auburn green colors? Or is it the spring season and the colors are bright and filled with pastels?
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• Location

When thinking of your mood board, consider the location or locations you're thinking to take your photographs. This helps you and your photographer when scouting areas that have similar looks and feels of your described locations.
 

• Textures

It's not always necessary, but adding a chosen texture or items to your mood board helps give a bigger picture of the type of session you're aiming for. This can be an image of pumpkins for the falls season, the texture of water crashing on rocks for an beach sessionm or simply texture of comfy pillows if you're planning for an in-home session lounging on the couch.

• Outfits

 
This is the part most people preparing for session have the hardest time with especially when planning for a family session. When thinking of outfits, you want to consider a number of things: weather of those locations, purpose of session (holiday portraits are usually festive colors like burgundy reds, bold greens,  and khakis, for example) 

Just as long as you're not too matchy-matchy (think 90's boy bands with all the matching outfits.. you don't want that life. 

• Emotion

Lastly, the emotion you want to emulate in your overall session should be shown in your mood board to help your photographer understand the emotions you're going for. It helps if you've chosen a photographer that is well-versed in pulling the emotions out in their subjects. Do you want your session to be filled with joy, laughs and happy family vibes? Great! Add images of this emotion in your mood board. 

I've added a sample of what your mood board should include:

​For some insight on how to create a mood board for yourself using only Pinterest and Canva, here's a video tutorial on how I made the mood board above in under 10 minutes:

Sources for images used in mood board:

Autumn palette
Simply Picturesque Photography
Ivy City.Co
A Spotted Life