We’re quickly diving into the holiday season, and with all the shopping, baking, and decorating, we don’t want you to forget to photograph it all! Darren suggested we remind you of some photographic tips and tricks so you don’t miss a thing.

getting ready

• Charge your camera batteries and your spares.
• Flash batteries too! (I always forget this one).
• Download + backup your memory cards, then format them so you can fill them with new images.
• Make sure your camera bag is fully stocked with everything you need, so you can just grab and go.
• You may even want to make a list of the important photographs that you’d like to make in the coming weeks.

must have photographs

• You’ve gotta photograph your Christmas tree. I remember as a kid my Mom would always take a picture of my brothers and I in front of our Christmas tree. We’d even hang a sign on the tree with the year the photo was taken.
• Exterior photograph of your house all done up for the holidays.
• Detail photographs of planters, the wreath on your front door, and any other holiday arrangements. This is great because you can refer back to it next year and easily remember what you liked and what you’d like to change.
• Photos with Santa, if that’s your thing.
• Group photos at holiday parties – it’s always nice if you can take a photo of everyone at an event. If that’s not possible then be sure to take a group photo of everyone at your table.
• Family photos.
• And don’t forget puppy with his antlers on!
• Those fantastic snowman shaped cookies that grandma makes every year.

other fun images

• Snowmen, snow angels, snow forts, tobogganing, and other winter activities – think rosy cheeks and laughter.
• I love the idea of a snowman family. Wouldn’t that make a fun holiday card?
• Trees laden with snow and other lovely snowy scenes.
• Young me, now me.

tips

Photographing your Christmas tree – If you have a tripod you’ll probably want to use it when photographing your tree. To get an image that shows both the lights and the decorations, try photographing it just before the sun starts to fade for the day. As the room gets darker you’ll start to see more of the lights and less of the decorations so you may need to experiment over a few days to get it just right.

Photographing falling snow – Want to highlight the falling snow in your images? Turn on your flash, it will light those babies up leaving bright white circles speckled all over your photograph. This works for rain too.

Group table photos at holiday parties – If you’re at a party and you’re taking a group photograph of everyone at your table, get them to stand in front of a nice wall or plant. Don’t photograph across the table. Please.

Family photo props – Add some festive pizzazz to your holiday family photos by hamming it up with Santa hats, antlers, stockings, ornaments, tinsel, ugly sweaters, tissue paper crowns, tiaras, and New Year’s noisemakers.

Decorating with holiday photos – Years ago I heard a really great tip about updating your wall art and family photographs for the season. Store your festive photos in your existing picture frames that are currently hanging on your wall, tucking them behind the image that you display the rest of the year. Then, each December, carefully swap the imagery so your holiday themed photos are on display.

Photojojo has also posted some tips about photographing lights and decorations, so take a peek over there.

What are your favourite holiday images?

{images from top: Abby Blaine, Allen D Johnson}

Don’t forget to get out there and make some fall photos! Some subjects to consider:

• fall planters and window boxes {either ones you’ve created or arrangements in your neighbourhood that inspire you}
• close-ups of iconic fall leaves
• fall flowers and ornamental cabbages
• scenic shots of the changing colours
• family group photographs among the fall leaves {think sweaters}
• images of kids playing in piles of leaves

Have another suggestion for great fall photos? Leave it in the comment section below.

Have you been over to check out The Blah, Blah, Blahg yet?  No?  Well you should.  Miss B’s (of the bright side project) blog has lots of posts with tips and tutorials about photography and other crafty endeavors.  Plus last week she published my first article in a two-part blog posting with tips about composing your photos.  So go, read, learn, and leave lots of questions for me to answer.

I know how easy it is to take a hundred digital photographs. I know how easy it is to download a hundred photographs onto my computer. And I know how hard it is to sort through all those images and actually make prints. They sit there in a folder on my computer, taunting me. The folder grows ever larger and more intimidating until it reaches a size that all but unsurmountable.  Then one day I have to force myself to sit down and sift through the unending list of photographs and decide what to have printed.  As much as I love photographs and albums this is a task I dread.  Don’t let this happen to you.

To try and ease my pain I’ve decided that at the end of each month I’ll go through all my image files and print what I’d like printed then archive, catalogue, and remove all unneccessary images from my hard drive.  I began this process in July and let me tell you: it’s so much nicer!  I can quickly sort through the month’s imagery and be on my way!  I encourage everyone to try it, even just for a few months.  Your sanity and your hard drive will thank you.

I found a great album company, it’s actually where I ordered my wedding album from.  You can check them out here.

The photograph Crystal Clear is now available in my Etsy shop.

Timing is everything when photograhing sunsets.  The best moments to get magnificent shots are just as the sun touches the horizon and 10-30 minutes after the sun disappears from view.  So hang around, enjoy the colours, and don’t forget your camera.

Choosing the correct background colour can go a long way to enhance your photographs.  Pick a colour that compliments your image.  An easy way to do that is to match one of the colours of your subject to your background.  In the image above I chose a bluish background to match the blue eyes of the baby.  Different colours can create different moods – have fun with it!

Interested in taking photos of the beach?  Early in the morning and late in the evening are the best times since there will be less people milling about.  Plus the angle of the sun at dawn and dusk will make for more interesting lighting conditions and the warm golden evening light can really add another dimesion to your photographs.

Portraits are always much nicer if you keep your camera above the level of your subject’s nose. If you position your camera lower than that you can end up looking up someone’s nose – and no one wants to see that!

Has anyone else noticed how cheap memory cards are getting? For a very small amount of money you can purchase a card for your camera that holds hundreds of images. And I’ll admit it is quite tempting to have tons of images from a bunch of different events all on a single memory card, I mean that’s why they make them so big, isn’t it?

Beware.

All your eggs are in one basket. So lets say you go on vacation and you take your camera along with you. You take a whole bunch of pictures of a whole bunch of exciting things you do and see. You get back from vacation and you take your camera with you to a concert where you snap a bunch of pics of your new favourite band performing live. Next is your best friends wedding, everyone’s all dressed up and looking divine – a regular photo-fest. Then you happen to be at your sister’s house when your only nephew takes his first step. What magic you’ve caught on film! Now your card is getting full and you figure it’s about time to download your images. You connect up to your computer and start the transfer process when a message pops up on the screen indicating that your memory card cannot be read! Memory cards are just like the hard drive space on your computer and for many reasons (which I won’t get into here) they are also susceptible to corruption which in turn can mean that you’ve lost all those memories you’ve recorded on it are gone. It happens more often than you think.

Plus, memory cards are plastic and fairly delicate. Don’t get them wet, drop them, or sit on them. The plastic can break or the parts inside can become damaged.

So, invest in some small capacity memory cards and download your images frequently to reduce the risk of losing everything.

Whenever you’re photographing a scene that has horizontal lines in it (such as a landscape, a building, or a product on a tabletop), take a second while you’re looking through the viewfinder to make sure that you’re holding your camera straight. By double checking that your lines are level before you take the picture you’ll save yourself a lot of work later trying to straighten things out – plus you’ll end up with a much more pleasing image.