Upcoming family portrait - need some ideas/advice

[LL01773]

Hi,
Sometime in the next few weeks I'm going to be doing a family portrait shoot and I'm hoping that some of the more experienced photographers here could help me out a bit.
The family will consist of 4 adults, 2 young boys (under the age of 10) and a baby girl.
Basically what I'm asking for are some suggestions for poses and maybe lighting setups.
I have a recently purchased 3 head lighting kit and background system with a choice of plain white and black backgrounds.
The kind of shots I want to take need to be reasonably relaxed/casual rather than rigid/formal poses.

Any advice/suggestions would be much appreciated. Maybe even some shots of similar situations if anyone has them.

Cheers

Elliott

[breathless]

How much space is your studio? Is it a 3 generation image(grand parents, parents, 3 kids)? 7 is a lucky number in the UK, is it not?

If the group is of one family, try to place the elder(s) in the center, then place the others around them.

Good posing rules of thumb to consider when photographing small groups:
Pose each person's eyes with the next person's mouth.
Heads and bodies tilted toward the center(subtlety is key.)
Shoulders angled toward the center.
A triangle, upside down triangle, zig-zag, triangle and diamond(since there are 7) patterns with their faces will provide a nice flow in the image.
Similar colors/tones of wardrobe.
Space between subjects narrower than space between frame edge and outside subject.
Show the edge of hands.

As for lighting, a posed group of 7(in two rows) may be 5 feet wide. To evenly light the group with one key, is to feather the light. With proper feathering, you can get even light(within 1/3 of a stop) from the person closest to the key and the person farthest from the key. The other lights can be used for fill and background/separation/hair, whatever you wish.

High stools are good to have to aid in posing the group.