When Is A Good Time To Update Family Portraits Professionally?

Benjamin Franklin once said: “𝑳𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒇𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏” . Time is life’s most precious commodity. It is always a good time; never too early; and often too late to update your family portrait professionally.

We all know that time flies, and it seems like just the other day our bundle of joy was born or the family portrait at your parent’s home doesn’t have the grandkids yet. So… when is the best time to update a family portrait then? Turns out, there’s no one definitive answer – it depends on your family’s circumstances. Keep reading for some tips on when to update your family portrait professionally!

1. The Arrival of New Family Members

Of course, one of the best times to update family portraits is when you or your loved ones have new members in their lives. If your family just welcomed a new bundle of joy – update those photos. Make it a family tradition, invest in memories, and to document your family’s growth. Your kids will thank you for it later on!

2. Celebrating Birthdays

It’s also a good idea to update family portraits on birthdays. Many parents consider one year old birthday shoots as important milestones to document for their baby. After all, you’ve survived the 1st year of raising your child and that’s also your child celebrating their 1st birthday with the family.

When you are running out of meaningful gift ideas for celebrating your own, your other half’s birthday, or even your parent’s birthday, updating a family portrait brings dividends for everyone! The family will be reminded of those fun times together and fresh memories to cherish in the years to come.

3. Celebrating Anniversaries

If you have been married more than 5 years, or your parents had been married for more than 40 or 50 years, these are definitely milestones worth celebrating. Either with a family portrait; or an extended family portrait to show off how far you have come as a family. Certainly documenting another chapter of your lives with beautiful memories to cherish and reminisce in the time to come.

4. Before You Move Out Of Your Home

One of the most important things you’d probably like your kids to remember will most likely be the home they grew up in. By updating your family portrait in this home, you are creating memories to be cherished now and looked back with fondness in the future.

5. When You Move Into Your New Home

When you’ve moved into your new home – update the family portrait to reflect this milestone. Have new family images, new wall framing to fit into your new home’s decor and make it homely. After all, it is one of the biggest moves you will ever make in life.

6. Before Someone Depart For Work, Overseas Studies Or National Service

Usually, this requires them to be away from home in the order of years. In regard to compulsory national service in Singapore, many update their family portraits before the kids get enlisted, while they still have a full head of hair.

7. When You Haven’t Got A Photo Of You With The Kids

If you are the appointed family photographer of the household, it is very likely that you have very little if not none of you in the photos. What’s worse is you volunteer yourself because you are perpetually feeling you look heavy on photos. Come on, your kids want to see you in the photos. You being big or small, heavy or light will never be their focus when they look at family portraits. Even if they do, so what? How long can you procrastinate doing that family portrait.

8. When You Have Visiting Family Members From Abroad

If your siblings, parents, or cousins are visiting you from abroad, make it a point to pre-plan and gather everyone to update the extended family portrait. Most likely this would be your only chance for a long while. Our experience is most of the time, this happens around the festive seasons around Christmas & New Year.

9. When Someone In The Family Is In Their Final Stages Of Life

A really common time to update family portraits is when someone in the family had been diagnosed with a terminal illness or approaching the end of life. If a member of your family has been sick for a while, and you know that they’re not going to be around much longer, you may want to update their portrait as soon as you can. Even if you update a family portrait in this scenario, it doesn’t mean that the person is going to pass away any time soon – it just means that your photography session needs to happen before they’re no longer around and to get that last portrait ready.

10. Your Last Family Portrait Update Was More Than 5 Years Ago

If the update of your family portrait is more than 5 years ago, you know pretty well yourself that it’s time for a new update. Most often than not, today’s kids are so much taller and bigger than before. Some members of the extended family might not be around anymore while the new members are not in it yet.