Spring Family Photoshoot // Jared Family

Spring in Boise is one of my favorite times for family photos because everything is so beautiful, lush, and green. However, green grasses and trees sometimes pose a problem for beautiful portrait photos because it can cause a green color cast on the subject’s skin, causing issues for perfect skin tones.

I have found a few tips helpful in shooting in areas with lots of green while being able to avoid green skin tones. Below are a few of my tips:

Shoot later in the day or on cloudy days when the sun is less intense. This is because intense sunlight is more likely to causes the greens to look neon and to bounce back on your subject.
Somewhat related to #1, I try shoot my subjects mostly in the shade when they are on grass. The shade helps diffuse and absorb the sunlight, rather than bouncing green light back in my subjects faces.
I recommend my clients avoid wearing dark or bright greens so as to have some contrast with the green background. What typically works well is wearing complimentary colors in blues or sage, or contrasting colors of reds or oranges. Going with neutral tans or greys is also always a safe bet.
When editing sessions with lots of green grasses and trees, I always try to somewhat desaturate the yellows (to bring down any neon hue that is showing up on the leaves/grasses), but not so much that the greens end up looking gray. I also slide the yellow and green hue more to the right to bring out the green more, then bring down the saturation and luminance of the greens to bring out a deeper, richer green.

I hope you found these tips helpful! Now enjoy this beautiful spring session of one of my favorite client families!