Christmas Pictures Can Tell Stories
For Generations to Come

Have you ever heard anyone exclaim: "This is a really great Christmas photo!" Probably not. And yet every single year, families are getting together and taking Christmas pictures.

You would think that "practice makes perfect," but in this case... you'd be wrong-oh. (By the way, if you celebrate something other than Christmas, everything on this page applies perfectly to that holiday too.)

There are several reasons for the general lack of quality in holiday pictures today:

• People don't tend to place the same "level of importance" on taking Christmas pictures as say, anniversary parties, graduations, and of course... weddings. Apparently, frequency equates to low importance, and since Christmas comes around every single year...

• For Christmas, most of the energy seems to go toward coordinating family travel, gifts, food and menu plans, not in taking terrific photos.

• The people who generally take the pictures are the busiest multitasking people at the event, and therefore feel fortunate to have even remembered to bring the camera, let alone be prepared to take wonderful photographs.

• There are unique challenges for taking holiday pictures that most people are not aware of; hence, the resulting photos come out not as good as they could.

• Very little photographic planning goes into taking Christmas pictures.

Preparation!

• Determine the Source of the Lighting (natural, fluorescent, tungsten, light bulb, or candles) you will be dealing with.

• Know the best white balance setting for the lighting. Note that when using a flash, switch the white balance to Flash, regardless of the normal source of lighting. When in doubt, use the Auto or Automatic white balance camera setting, if available.

• Determine whether you should be using any exposure compensation.

• Is bounce flash appropriate? The smaller the room/shorter the ceilings, the more appropriate it is to use bounce flash.

• Are there obstacles that will get in the way of any pictures (columns, fixed objects, plants, etc.)? If so, plan your seating or your shooting location accordingly.

• How's the Background? If it's neutral - use it. If it's ugly, maximize your depth of field (smallest possible F-stop) to blur the background.

• Seating Arrangements: If using rectangular tables, take the Christmas pictures facing the wide end of the rectangle and use a wide angle setting.

  If you shoot any Christmas pictures from the narrow end, use as large an F-stop number as possible (optimally F-22 or higher). However, even if you do, some of the guests will probably still be out of focus (hence, the "shoot from the wide end" suggestion).

• Test Shots: Take practice shots before the event, using what you believe are the correct camera settings. If practical, you can then verify the final result on your computer. Go through the shoot-examine-adjust settings cycle until you are satisfied.

  If this approach is not practical (for example, you might be traveling in from out of town), use the camera's LCD screen to review test shots.

  However, realize that this approach will not catch anything other than very obvious problems. If you check the histogram though, you will be able to at least get an indication whether the overall photograph's contrast is correct.

• LCD Display: Avoid using the display to check anything other than very obvious things, such as if you cut off any one's head. LCD displays should NOT be used to confirm contrast, color, exposure, or any other critical factors. They are not appropriate for that function, although many people use the LCD display for that purpose.

• Equipment: Have fully-charged batteries (rechargeable preferred), memory cards, chargers, external flash, lens accessories, and tripod ready.

• The Christmas Pictures List: Jot down the Must Have pictures, as well as the ones you would like to capture, if possible.

• Look At The List: As you get swept up in the excitement of the holiday, you won't remember all the great shots you wanted to take during the celebration, unless you refer to your list.

• Before the Chaos: Take as many of the "non-people" shots (such as ornaments) before anyone arrives and chaos is at a minimum.

After hanging thousands of Christmas ornaments, it's easy to miss the potential of taking artistic and memorable Christmas pictures.

The first ornament photo is probably how most of us envision them. Nice enough, especially for special ornaments; but nothing exceptional.

However, by using a very large aperture (low F-stop), we create a shallow depth of field which for all intensive purposes, blurs out the background. Now, we're moving into the artistic domain.

Now we can play with color, lights, and shades in the background to contrast and set up the subject of the Christmas photo. Here's where you are only limited by your own creativity.

An overlooked technique in Holiday pictures is to use a spherical reflective surface to act as a convex mirror and show everything behind the photographer.

If you look carefully at this ornament, you can see much of the room in front of the ornament.

Play with your macro camera setting to focus very close in on the ornament, thus creating a fish-eye view Christmas picture.

The composition is also good... the tree is a perfect background. In this picture, what is the subject; the hands, gift, or the tree?

It's the hands. Why then are the hands out of focus and the tree perfectly in focus? (It's easier to tell in the full-size photo, but the tree is in perfect focus, while the hands are not.)

When you are photographing a complicated photograph (from the camera's perspective) where there are numerous potential objects to focus on, do not use auto focus.

Either manually focus on the specific subject you want in focus, or make sure the focusing rectangle, dot, or whatever your camera uses, is on the subject that you want to be in focus.

The Christmas season produces numerous different objects that can be creatively combined to produce a very artistic holiday picture.

This is a very simple example of using a large quantity of the same identical object to produce the desired effect.

If you observe the surroundings with a "photographer's eye," I guarantee you will find numerous Christmas picture classics.

As shown here, the only thing the photographer needed to do was decide what part of the total scene should fill the viewfinder for greatest impact.

In this case, they did a great job, and wound up getting a terrific Christmas picture.

This is a nice photograph of the family searching for that perfect Christmas tree. For these type of shots, simply refer to the posing tips for the appropriately sized group.

For all these group shots, just remember all the points mentioned in the posing pages, tips about flash/lighting, and composition.

In this Christmas picture on the right, generally it is very good. There are several different poses, everyone is smiling, and the Christmas tree is playing a nice there-but-not-overpowering role.

It's too bad that the one little detail of having the little girl on the left facing the camera was overlooked. These sized group shots should have at least 3 takes, insuring that the smiling/blinking/facing the camera dilemmas are taken care of.

This final group Christmas picture is completely different. The thing I like about this one is identifying it with the Christmas card motif on the back wall.

If you are interested in knowing how to capture stunning group pictures, you might be interested in our "By-the-Numbers" approach.

Let me sum up the group Christmas pictures with this primary tip:

As long as you convey family closeness, love, and joy... YOU HAVE A WINNER!