5 Tips For Taking Photos During The Holiday Season

With the Holiday season fast approaching, why not practice on taking better photos with your family while everyone is together? These are the times you will treasure and most want to capture with amazing Holiday photos!

We hope these 5 tips along with some items from our Best Buy Holiday Wish List will help you get the most out of your photos this year.

1. Add Sparkle and Shine to Eyes

Catching sparkle in the eyes is what helps make a photo spectacular! A great tip is turn your subject AWAY from the sun, then use a light reflector to bounce light into your subject’s eyes. Or you can stand in the shade and get above your subject and shoot down to allow the light of the sky to sparkle in their eyes. Not outdoors? Move to a window to get some nice natural light. Get more tips in our tutorial here.

2. Be prepared ahead of time for group photos.

Have a large family and not sure how to pose them or how to get everyone together for a good photo this Holiday?  Be prepared this year with ideas like different angles, posing ideas and tricks to use if you have a lot of kids. Using a fisheye lens can make a group photo even more fun.

Try out these 10 Tips for Photographing Large Groups and look through some fun posing ideas for 3-8 people and ideas for posing older children,

3. Get the kids involved.

Sometimes we are so busy preparing for the holidays that it’s hard to take photos when the family is all together. Why not get the kids involved by giving them a camera? Find an old camera or give them a new fun camera for an early present. Then give them a few “assignments for the day” and see what images you get out of them.

Sample photo assignments for kids:

• Documenting what the adults are doing. Example; take photos of someone cooking in the kitchen.
• Take photos without anyone knowing that you are doing it. Introduce them to Lifestyle Photography.
• See how many smiling faces they can capture in a day.
• Get detail photos of decorations, presents, food, etc.
• Give them a color or letter theme.
• Write items down for a photo scavenger hunt.

You might find that you have a talented kid and actually get in some photos yourself this season too!

4. Traveling this Holiday? Simplify.

Do you dread the idea of carrying a HUGE camera and heavy lenses around this Holiday? Check out the new compact mirrorless cameras and cool lenses for iPhones for traveling. We absolutely love high quality gear that will easily fit in our purses!

Also, you don’t have to bring every piece of gear when traveling. Just take your favorite lens and keep it simple. Using a good travel bag for equipment will help simplify and keep equipment safe as well.

5. Make images looks their best with a bit of photo editing.

Holiday photos are images you will treasure forever. Make sure they look great! Try doing some post process editing with a few simple steps. We use Photoshop to edit our photos, but if you are a non-pro with a smaller budget, we suggest trying out Photoshop Elements.

1. After uploading photos to your computer, many tend to be dark. Use the Levels Tool to simply lighten and brighten the tone of your image. Move the far white or middle gray slider to the left until it looks good to you. You can also do this with curves. It’s amazing the difference this easy tip can make in a photo!
2. Sharpen the eyes with the sharpening tool. Just a little will do. You want to make sure to keep eyes looking natural by turning the brush strength percentage down to about 10-15%. Get detail instructions with these 5 Ways to Make Eyes Pop tutorial.
3. If the photo looks dull, try increasing the saturation a bit to give it more color.
4. If sharing on the web, re-size your photo to 800 pixels or less then sharpen the entire image.

You can find a lot of great free actions for more fun Holiday photo editing on our Free Resources Page.

Check out our Holiday “Gifts that Do” Wish List over on Best Buy for more great products to help you take better photos this season!

 This post was sponsored by Best Buy, all opinions on products are our own.

Tagged as: Best Buy, camera, christmas, Christmas photos, family photos, holiday, holiday gift list, holidays, photography products, Photography Tips, tips for holiday photos