Happy December everyone! Erica here with some fun and easy tips to enhance your holiday photos. This is the time of year when almost everyone is taking photos of loved ones, food, snow, and all of the colorful lights everywhere. So here are some photography tips I’ve picked up along my journey which may help you this season.
1. Bokeh
Ah, the bokeh holiday photo is almost a must-have, it makes your photos magical. It might seem as if its complicated but its actually very simple to achieve. If you are using a DSLR camera then you’re going to need a fast lens so you can decrease your aperture to around f/2.8 or lower. This will decrease your depth of field and allow you to create those blurry balls of light.
You can either blur everything in the photo by getting up-close (see above photo) or you can zoom out and only blur the background by focusing on a specific item in the foreground (see low-light photo below). The possibilities are endless here!
2. Low-Light Photos
In order to capture all the gorgeous lights you’re probably going to need to take some of your photos in low-light settings. You can use the auto setting on your camera if you’d like with good results but the best results will come from utilizing your manual settings. If you don’t own a DSLR, there are plenty of smartphone apps which allow you to manually adjust your phone’s camera settings.
- Increase your ISO to 400 or 800, I wouldn’t recommend going any higher than 800
- Decrease your aperture to around f/2.8 or lower if you own a fast lens
- Turn off your flash
- Grab a tripod or steady your body against a wall to avoid camera shake
If going fully manual is too much work, set your camera to aperture priority and go to the lowest aperture possible for your lens. It will take a few tries to get it right but just play around with the settings and see what works.
3. Go Black and White
The holiday season is full of bright and bold colors and they don’t always play nice in photos. The above photo had green, blue, grey, silver, white… it was just a hodgepodge of colors that was not working for me. The nigh time glow from the light just was not coming through in the color photo, so I added a black and white filter then played with a few settings. The way that my eye saw the photo finally came to life by removing the color and playing with some grey tones. For low-light and holiday photos, it always allows the lights to glow and stand out.
Just a simple adjustment can change your entire layout and for the better. Making your photos black and white add a layer of complexity and a bit of mystery which is always great.
4. Taking Photos in the Snow
One of the things about taking snow photos is that your pictures can come out very underexposed and somewhat dull. The easiest way to solve this problem is by using your exposure compensation dial and increasing it up to +1 or +2. This will keep the snow in your photos looking nice and white.
If you received a lens hood with your camera, use it! It helps to block out any light reflecting off of the snow and eliminates any lens flares popping up in the corners of your photos.
Lastly, look for contrast. With all the bright, white snow around its easy to have a photo full of nothing but white space. Look for pops of color around whether it be a tree, ribbon, unlit Christmas lights, whatever!
5. Have Fun and Take Lots of Photos
When I was first learning photography, my teacher always said don’t take it so seriously. It causes so much unnecessary stress when you’re worried about getting the right photo and you end up missing some great moments if you’re stuck behind the lens. Just relax and take lots of photos, you’ll be surprised at what ends up in your camera roll.
Have a wonderful, photo-filled holiday everyone!
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