Photo Tips to Inspire Your Creativity This Holiday Season

Checkout the following fabulous content that will provide you with a wealth of suggestions to create festive holiday images this season! Capture your kids enjoying family traditions, learn how to incorporate sparkling bokeh to infuse warmth and charm into your photos, or provide a creative outlet for your kids to share their personality with a stylized holiday photo shoot.

USE HOLIDAY LIGHTS AS THE PRIMARY LIGHT SOURCE: To really achieve the holiday vibe in your photographs, use your holiday lights as the primary light source in your scene. Experiment with different types of lights to create a magical atmosphere. Use fairy lights, candles, your Menorah or Christmas Tree. This results in moody images with strong shadows and a lot of contrast. These pictures are best captured at night.

USE NATURAL LIGHT TO CAPTURE FAMILY TRADITIONS AND HEIRLOOMS
1. Turn off over head lights and lamps
2. Find a window on the side of the house opposite of the sun (this will give you soft even light)
3. Open the drapes and blinds.
4. Bing your subject close to the window.
5. Give your kids something to do and then shoot away!

HOLIDAY LIGHTS AND BEAUTIFUL BOKEH
Holiday lights create beautiful bokeh and create a festive feel to all your holiday photographs. You can use the light from any indoor or outdoor lighting decorations. Bokeh is the esthetic quality of the out of focus area in a photograph. Objects that fall outside of the main focal plane of the photograph, in the foreground or background, will be out of focus. 

Create your own gorgeous holiday bokeh when you maximize these depth of field elements.
1. WIDE APERTURE: Choose a wide aperture: f/1.8 - f/2.8. You can manipulate these settings on your phone in your camera app. Alternatively, use a camera that allows you to manipulate the aperture as this will greatly enhance your image quality.
2. SEPARATION FROM THE BACKGROUND Create distance between your subject and the background.  The greater the separation the greater differentiation of what is in focus and what is not in focus. This will make it easy to get the blurred out holiday lights.
3. GET CLOSER TO YOUR SUBJECT Decreasing the distance between you and your subject will accentuate the blurred out portion of the image.
4. ADD BACKGROUND ELEMENTS Choose a background that has elements that will add interest to your images when they are out of focus.  Our holiday lights are a superb choice for enhancing the interest in the background of our pictures.
5. ADD INTEREST TO THE FOREGROUND Add an element in the foreground to add additional depth to the images. Greenery from seasonly plants would be a nice touch, even consider placing fairy lights between you and your subject.

HOLIDAY THEMED PHOTO SHOOT FOR THE TWEENS AND TEENS
So many tweens and teens love getting in front of the camera. Why not have them consider a holiday theme, get some inspiration online, do a little shopping and let their creativity flow with poses, props and expressions.

Have fun and experiment with different ideas. Don't be afraid to think outside the box and add your own personal touch to each image. Whether you're capturing candid moments or setting up a stylized scene, let your creativity shine through in every holiday picture.

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