10 Simple Tips to Show Your Christmas Photography Skills



Photography and Christmas seem to go hand in hand.
So, here are 10 Christmas photography tips to make sure those photos turn out great.
1) Use lower apertures:
Create beautiful bokeh in your Christmas background lights by dropping your apertures. The image below is shot on a Canon 5D Mark III with a Canon 50mm f1.2 lens at F2.0. Of course, you have to be very accurate with your focus at such shallow depth of fields, but if you can get your subjects sharp, the low apertures will really make your images pop and bring out those beautiful background Christmas lights. If your lens is capable, try staying at f2.8 or below.
2) Use natural light (avoid flash):
If you’re looking to create natural, warm and moody images, make sure you turn off your flash for some (if not most) of your photos. This allows the ambient light of the Christmas lights or fireplace to show up in your images and allows parts of the scene to fall off into shadow.
3) Use Christmas props:
For Christmas portraits, consider including fun Christmas props like Santa hats and cute holiday outfits. It’s tempting to lounge around in pyjamas all day, but a little bit of extra planning will go a very long way.
4) Get close:
Putting the subject of your photo closer to the camera can help increase the amount of blur in the out-of-focus parts of the image, which works great for small details like Christmas ornaments. Be sure to keep your apertures low and consider using a macro lens to get in even closer while still being able to focus. Again, consider turning off your flash to maintain the natural, moody feel.
5) Use fun and silly poses:
The holiday season is a time of fun and cheer. Be sure to step away from those classic smile-into-the-camera poses and get silly. As the photographer, whether you’re hired professionally to capture a holiday event or you’re simply photographing your family, it’s your job to get great reactions, smiles and poses from your subjects.
6) Consider a photo booth:
Photo booths are getting easier and easier to set up. There are free photo booth apps on your iPad as well as a variety of simple, inexpensive photo booth software. For large holiday parties, these are great additions to the festivities; and they even work well for small family gatherings.
7) Stay active and ready for great reactions:
Stay ready and actively anticipate smiles and laughs. Keep your camera up as your family and friends open their gifts and snap away at the reactions. Some of your best shots from Christmas will be the non-posed, in-the-moment images.
8) Consider creating a GIF:
GIFs are great for showing a series of events in a sequence. Combining images from these moments can result in hilarious GIFs that your family will love.
9) Consider creating a collage:
Rather than posting 10 individual photos, consider creating a collage. In our world of social media, it’s easier to Instagram, Facebook, and Tweet one picture that sums up the party than to clutter up newsfeeds and timelines with multiple images.
10) Use advanced techniques, like long exposures and composites:
To create beautiful starry effects in the Christmas lights, consider using small apertures and long exposures. This conflicts with our first tip of dropping down your aperture, but this tip is used to create an entirely different look. With small apertures, you’re utilising diffraction to create start bursts. If you’re including people or other moving subjects in your photo, consider merging multiple images in a composite.

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