5 Traditions To Capture During The Holidays
We are an interfaith family. I am Catholic and my husband is Jewish. The holiday season is filled with many different traditions and gatherings to honor our different backgrounds. Lighting the Menorah, putting up the Christmas tree, decorating the house, hosting holiday parties, opening presents, just to name a few. What are the holiday moments and traditions important to your family?
1. BAKING Do you have a traditional family dish you make for your holiday celebration? Making cookies during the holidays is very popular. Take pictures of the baking process. A snapshot of the written recipe, pictures of the kids helping mix ingredients, another one of the end product and then maybe an image of the family members enjoying the dish or treat.
2. DECORATING As you take time to beautify your home during the holidays, snap some pictures of the process. Is there a special decoration that has a sentimental value? In our home, we have many ornaments and each one has a story. As we decorate the tree, we enjoy recounting those memories. Some are over 40 years old belonging to my parents, others come from my childhood, still others were introduced recently and are a part of our daughter’s experiences. Grab a close up of the unique and memorable items in your home. When you put together your family album, include a few words to describe the meaning of those family mementos.
3. PRESENTS Take a picture of the presents piled together. Get in tight and fill the frame with the pretty paper. Try and work with your depth of field to separate your subject from the background. If you are working with a DSLR camera, put it in aperture priority mode, use a low f-stop ( f/2.8 and lower). Place your subject a few feet in front of your background. Focus on the main subject and snap the image. This will create the blurred out background making your subject a strong focus of the image. Don’t forget to grab the shot of the kids tearing open the presents!
4. LIGHTS During this season lights can be a central theme. Lights decorating your outdoor space, holiday lighting parades, lighting of the Menorah, and the lights of the Christmas Tree. Using these holiday elements can make for some dramatic and beautiful images. More to come on this subject later this month!
5. HOLIDAY EVENTS What does your family do to celebrate the holidays? Do you host or attend parties? Grab an image of the table set for dinner. Zoom in close on a special bottle of wine, or the pattern of your china. Do you visit a community attractions such as the Botanic gardens, a parade or holiday market? Maybe your family participates in a social donation/giving. Try and grab some pictures of the family during these events to round out your holiday documentary
Whenever I am taking pictures for my family, I am always thinking about how these images will come together on the pages of a family album. I am not very crafty, so scrapbooking does not come easy for me. However, it is important to me to display and create keepsakes of my family’s experiences. I can do this with photographs and digital photo albums. This is why I encourage you to take close ups of the details during an event, vary your perspective when you are shooting a scene. These additional images when paired with the portraits and actions shots will lend to a complete story in your yearly family album.