Photographing Christmas and Holiday Events

Well it’s that time of the year again, Christmas season. For some us that means trying to squeeze in some time to get out with the camera and shoot some of those special outdoor Christmas light displays or maybe it’s just getting photos of the family on Christmas day. A lot of you might be trying out that new camera with the hopes of getting some great photos. But either way, whether you are photographing the symbolic subjects of the holidays or your friends and family, getting creative with your composition certainly cannot hurt. This means that by paying special attention to how you organize the various elements in each photo, you too can create your own set of great holiday memories.


For Better Family and Group Portraits

 One of the most important things to keep in mind when photographing groups and families is this: you absolutely must take a lot of photos. There is often a great deal of pressure when photographing groups. A lot of people are uncomfortable having their picture taken and want the experience to be over quickly. Plus, you need to work quickly in order to get the job done (within the limits of their patience) and to try keep the experience as fun and friendly as possible. It seems like there is always someone blinking or looking off to the side or facing another member of the group. By having a large number of photos will improve your odds of catching everyone looking their best.

 
Shoot First, Ask Questions Later  

This tip is especially true if your subject is a child opening a gift or playing with a gift for the first time. We all know that within a split second, the whole scene can change. There are often just a few brief moments when that "magic spark" appears. Of course this means having your camera on hand and the batteries fully charged. Remember, its always a good idea to have back-up batteries ready also. After all, you can't capture the moment if you don't have your camera turned on and ready to go right?. Remember, you have to be ready to press that shutter button in a moment's notice, anticipating when the magic spark will surface. If you have a digital camera that suffers from a bit of a delay when taking the picture, then you will have to become even more intuitive and skilled at anticipating the moment. Another good tip; make sure you have enough space on your memory card and carry an extra card with you. Too often people will run out of space and either have to delete some photos or end their shooting for the day. Remember, these days’ memory cards are very inexpensive, so pick up an extra one and you’ll be glad you did. 

Fill Your Frame
 
One of the most common mistakes I see in Christmas photos (or any photo really) is that people often end up with shots of their subjects way off in the distance or on the other side of a room with lots of space all around them. One of the simplest tips I can give you is to just fill your frame with your subject. You do this two ways, either by using your zoom, or just getting up and moving yourself in closer. Easy huh? While this is one of the simplest tips I ever give it is one that can have the most profound impact on your shots. Try it out, you’ll be amazed.

Photographing Christmas Lights

The best time to shoot is before it gets totally dark, plus arriving around sunset will give you time to plan your shot before the good light happens. Try to compose your shots with as much sky as possible, getting down real low. It's always a good idea to be shooting in RAW mode, but if your not, remember to set your white-balance to Tungsten. All those little bulbs are tungsten balanced and as an added bonus your sky will look even better. Needless to say, you’ll need a way to steady your camera, preferably a tripod or mono-pod or even a beanbag for those long exposures. Plus a remote trigger or cable can come in real handy. Shoot a test shot every minute or so constantly checking the LCD. Sometime between sunset and full dark skies, your Christmas lights and the ambient light with start to mix beautifully. Usually you’ll have about a 10-minute window with nice light. After that, the good light will fade very quickly and you will know it is gone when your photos start looking like the "bad light" photos you used to take.  

Bonus Tips:

If you plan to use flash, nothing screams point-and-shoot like using a pop-up flash on-camera. We're not shooting motor vehicle photos right?  Red-eye reduction is nice, but a shoe-mounted flash is so much better if you own one and your camera has a hotshoe for it. When shooting indoors, not only can you bounce off of a wall or ceiling you can add a diffuser and make it hard to know a flash was used at all. Of course you might be able to avoid using flash at all by using a nice wide aperture like f2.8 or f/4 and bumping up your ISO a little, but a little fill-flash helps to lighten up your shadow areas and can really add some dimension to your photograph.

Remember, it’s always a good idea to plan ahead, maybe even making a check list of the things to remember like batteries, extra flash cards etc. Another good tip if your using a new camera, take some time and read (or re-read) your manual and get to know its buttons and features so you can use them even better. I can’t tell you how important this is.

Well until my next post, I hope you all have a very safe and happy holiday season and remember, as always, keep shooting and have some fun!

 

New York City trip - 2013

Well 2014 is finally here and right now it feels like we’re stuck in a deep freeze here in New England with about two weeks of single digit temps……brrrrr.  Last month on my blog I mentioned an upcoming trip back to the Big Apple and how I was hoping for a frosting of snow while I was in the city. As luck would have it, I got my wish because NYC got about 8 inches the day before I arrived.  The trip was planned with only about a two weeks’ notice but because of the Internet, I was able to plan out my short time in the city pretty well.

It all started when one of my friends from my camera club started making plans to go in to New York City to hook-up with some friends that she hadn’t seen in quite some time. She knew I really liked New York at Christmas time and asked me if I might be interested in going to New York with her.  I didn’t know if I could get off work on such short notice, but it worked out in my favor and I was able to go. We decided to take the train into the city which was about a 4 hour trip. The train was very enjoyable, plus it took us right in to Penn Station which was only two blocks from our hotel.

This trip I decided I’d travel very light and only took a backpack with a change of clothes and a limited camera outfit, a Canon 5D MkII with a Tamron 28-300mm lens and a single 580 EX II speedlite.

My friend had shopped around for a hotel online and found one with rooms for under $100 on Sundays and it was directly across the street from Madison Square Garden right in midtown Manhattan. The hotel was also only a few blocks walk from Rockefeller Plaza, Bryant Park, Times Square and Grand Central Station so almost every place we wanted to go was within walking distance. While I was there I was finally able to visit the new World Trade Center and also had a chance to spend some time in Central Park (which is one of the reasons I was hoping for snow)  I never knew the horse and carriage rides in the park went year-round so that was another added bonus. Another place I have always wanted to check out was B & H Photo (which is a photographers Disneyland) and I was able to stop by there also.

One of the things we both wanted to do was to shoot the New York City skyline around dusk from the Top Of The Rock but the waiting line was over 2 ½ hours and we weren’t about to wait that long. Overall it was a fast paced little getaway but because I was able to plan my time out, it turned out to be very enjoyable.   


For me, I always enjoy going in to New York City and hopefully I’ll get a chance to go back for a few days there this coming Spring and shoot Central Park when everything is coming alive and maybe visit some other famous landmarks like Liberty Island and Ellis Island. We’ll see?  In the meantime, keep shooting and have some fun!

Merry Christmas to all.......

Another year slowly coming to an end. I hope it was a good one for all of you. I just might have another post before New Years because I'm treating myself to a couple days in NYC and hopefully I'll get a "few keepers".  This will be my second trip into to New York at Christmas time and I'm hoping to visit some of the sites I missed on my first trip like the WTC memorial, Top of the Rock and Central Park. I'll be on a pretty tight time schedule but hopefully with some decent planning, I can visit all these places while I'm in town. Who knows, maybe we'll get a little dusting of snow while I'm there? I'm going in with a friend from my camera club on an early train leaving out of Providence, RI.  I've never taken a train any real distance so I'm looking forward to the train ride also. My friend did a little homework herself and found us a couple of affordable rooms in a nice hotel only a block or so away from Penn station, right in mid-town Manhattan. Nice huh?

This Christmas tree photo was taken two years ago on my first trip to the Big Apple around Christmas and it has special meaning to me personally. It was my first time going into NYC during the holidays and it proved to be a very enjoyable trip.  I've mentioned a few times on my blog that I belong to a pretty good sized camera club and a small group of us (7 of us) took an early morning bus into New York city back in December 2011. We only had about 8 or 9 hrs in the city total and we wanted to check out some of the popular tourist sites. Luckily for us, the ones we were checking out were all within walking distance of the bus station. We had to hustle to take them all in, but we got a chance to check out attractions like the Skating Rink, Times Square, Grand Central Station and Bryant Park. Bryant Park is right next door to the New York public library and only a few blocks from Grand Central Station. I had seen photos of it before and I knew it was known for having a beautiful tree and a nice display at Christmas time. 

I got a chance to see the park early in the day with my friends and I knew immediately when I first saw it that I was going to try to go back around dusk and shoot the tree again.  (pictured above). So when my friends ventured back to a pub closer to the bus station, I hustled over to Rockefeller Center and shot some more photos of the Christmas Tree and the Rink then rushed over to Bryant Park and got the shot above.  

I know that we all had a great time on that trip and that this photo will continue to be one of those shots that holds many fond memories for me. I hope you like it too. 

Remember, keep shooting and have some fun!