Christmas Morning Photos: 19 Quick Tips

Christmas time is here and I just wanted to share a few quick tips for being able to capture those Christmas morning memories. So, here they are:

• Charge up your batteries for your camera and put fresh batteries in your flash.
• Format your memory card and make sure to have a backup memory card handy.
• If you have a DSLR and a fast prime lens, then Christmas morning is the time to use them both. A fast lens can really make taking low light photos much easier.
• The night before Christmas be sure to clean up the area around the tree, vacuum or sweep the floor, get rid of piles of magazines, trash or anything else in the background or foreground that might be distracting.
• Talk to the children a few days before Christmas about where you might like them to sit and take a few practice shots. This practice session will help keep kids from sitting with their backs to the camera and will help keep children from sitting in front of one another and blocking your view and ability to take some great candid photos.
• After Santa comes and before you go to sleep make sure and take a picture of the tree. This does not have to be a work of art just a nice reminder of what it looked like before the kids get to the presents.
• Have the kids in modest festive pajamas, or better yet set out some nice clothes and tell everyone to get dressed before anyone can go in to see what Santa left under the tree.
• Get down on the ground and take pictures at eye level with the kids and don’t make the kids look at the camera.

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Candid photos are a great way to capture Christmas Memories.

• Avoid having a large bright light or window directly behind your subject and be sure to set your exposure metering to center weighted or spot metering, either of these settings will help the camera ignore any back lighting that might occur.
• If you are using an external flash unit then remember to use a flash diffuser or bounce the light off of the ceiling or a white wall.
• If you only have a built in flash then turn it off, or at the very least make sure that the red-eye reduction setting is turned on.
• If you are shooting without a flash then bump up the ISO to ISO 400 or ISO 800. Sure the photos might be a little noisy, but at least they will not be blurry.

A little blur is not always a bad thing.

• Shoot in manual or shutter priority mode and try to get as slow of a shutter as you can that will produce an image without blurring movement. I typically will shoot at about 1/160 of a second shutter speed. If your kids are really tearing into the toys then you might have to bump that up a bit, and if your kids are a bit more methodical then perhaps you could slow it down some. Remember to check a few exposures up front to make sure that you are not getting a blurry mess.

Even a shutter speed of 1/125s can freeze the action. She was really ripping the paper off of this present.

• Shoot lots of pictures.
• After the presents are all open then pose a few shots if you want. Then, while the kids are basking in the glow of Christmas, keep taking a few shots of them playing with the toys. I recommend not using the flash and stay a little further away from the kids. This is the time when they will forget that you are taking photos and you are sure to get some fantastic candid photos that will really tell the story of this special time of year.

After the presents are opened, if the kids want to pose with a few toys then be ready to capture the moment.

• If you have pets be on the lookout for them being curious. Remember, this is an exciting day for them too and they can be the subject of some very memorable holiday photos.

Remember that is a big day for your pets too.

• Get in a few pictures yourself. Don’t worry if you feel fat, old, or ugly, your kids love you just the way you are and they will cherish the photos of you when they are grown.
• Most importantly, remember that you are not trying to create art with these pictures. These are snapshots. They do not need to be perfect, they are to record the moment, not to be hung in a gallery.
• Remember to back up your photos as soon as you get the chance to do so. I recommend printing the best photos and sharing them with family and friends using the internet and social media. One word of caution when sharing, make sure that only the people you want to see your pictures can see them, unfortunately there are people out there that are up to no good and they shouldn’t have access to current pictures of your kids, particularly if GPS coordinates are embedded in the picture file or the included with a post.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

-- William

Bonus Tip: Don’t worry about the quality of the camera. If you only have an old point and shoot or a cell phone, still get in there and take pictures. The following photo was taken with a 3 mega pixel point and shoot, you can see that the color is terrible and it is grainy and a bit washed out. However, this was the best camera I had at the time. The technical quality of this image does not matter so much as does the fact that I was able to capture the moment.

Tags: Holidays, Flash, Natural Light, Candid, Pets, Christmas, Children, Prime Lens, DSLR, Point and Shoot