How To Take Better Photos This Christmas

Hey guys! No matter why you’re doing it, I’m sure that you’re taking a bunch of photos this Christmas. Whether you’re just trying to get a picture of all your friends together in your ugly Christmas sweaters, or you’re trying to capture bokeh background photos of the Christmas tree – I’ve got some tips for you! I’ve been into photography for a few years now, and have photos from several Christmas’ (along with this year as well 😉 ) so I thought this would be a helpful post for you all today!

Getting A Bokeh Background

Bokeh backgrounds seem complicated and difficult, but really they’re super simple and easy. You can do this technique with pretty much any camera that has a pretty good focus. To test your camera focus on a subject (such as your hand or another small object) and see if you get bokeh in the background. If you do, then this technique will work.

Find a background (such as the Christmas tree, or a bunch of lights) hold up the object (or your hand), then move the object or your hand and take the photo. You’ve got a bokeh background photo!

Taking Photos With An iPhone

Honestly, iPhone’s take pretty good photos. Ok, so they’re not as great as a dslr, but I mean sometimes carrying around a dslr everywhere is annoying and not practical. Here are some iPhone photography tips:

• Capture Up Close Details (Get up close and personal with the lights or the tree)
• Download The Lightroom Mobile app on your phone and edit your photos from there. (SUPER helpful!!)
• Blur The Background (Get closer to your subject, and try tapping your finger on the screen to set the focus point. You’ll see that the closer you are, the blurrier the background will become)
• Use The Volume Button To Take Photos (When you’re taking a selfie, it’s really hard to tap the camera shutter button. The easy way is to simply squeeze the volume up button on the side of your iPhone to snap the picture.)
• Keep Your Lens Clean (Significantly clearer photos!!)

Getting Photos of Outdoor Lights

When you’re take photos of lights outdoors, it will most likely already be dark outside, but try to make sure it is as dark as possible (eg. not during sunrise/sunset) This will make sure that the lights pop. The darker it is, the clearer the lights will be the photo, especially if you’re using an i-phone.

Getting Photos of Indoor Lights

If you’re taking photos of lights inside, it needs to be dark. If you want the lights to make an impact on the photo, then you need to make sure that it’s dark. The lights will really make the photo pop if it has a dark background.

How To Photograph Decorations

Christmas decorations are always so pretty, and if you’re anything like me, you want to remember them, so you can recreate next year. An easy way to store them and find them next year would be to create an album or file folder somewhere on your computer.

As for actually taking the picture, if you’re trying to get a warm cozy feel you’ll want to take the photo when there is a lot of cloudy light shining through the window. I always like to include lights of some sort in my photos, it’s an option, but I’d definitely recommend it.

How To Photograph People

My number one tip for photographing people would be to make sure there is plenty of natural light, and that you can see everyone’s faces. Notice how in the example above, there is natural light shining on everyone’s faces, and you can see them clearly. They aren’t fading into the background, but are in clear focus and right in the middle of the frame.

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I hope this post was helpful for you guys’ Christmas photography this year!

What’s your favorite thing to photograph at Christmas?

💙 Hannah