The holidays are always a time of gathering and memory-making, and it’s natural enough to take a lot of photos each year as the family gets together to share their adventures and spend some time together. You might even think that this year you’ll take some of the best photos from the holiday celebration and have them made into cheap canvas prints for an art gallery of memories, or as gifts for everyone. That’s a great idea … until you see the photos you take. Blurry, dim, and chaotic in composition – and you give up on the whole idea of making art prints from the photo roll on your smartphone and resolve to do better next year.
The fact is, there’s a secret to taking great holiday photos – the kind that deserve to be made into canvas prints and hung on your wall or given proudly as gifts. As with most other complex projects, leaving the holidays with excellent pictures is largely a matter of planning.
Holiday Art Gallery Success: Choose Your Shots
You want the holidays to be filled with spontaneous moments and unexpected surprises, of course – but those will happen anyway. To get the sort of holiday photos that will cry out for preservation and display as wall art, you’ve got to go into the holiday celebration knowing what you want.
So, make a list. It doesn’t have to comprehensive, it doesn’t have to lock you into a pre-ordained experience, and it doesn’t mean you can’t take a lot of casual, unplanned shots too. What it means is that if you want a gorgeous photo of the table laden with the feast and set brilliantly, know that going in and arrange to hold the family back so you can take a photo. If you want a photo of the tree with the gifts around it, make sure you get one. And if you want a photo of a grandparent or other family member with the grandkids, let them know early on what you want and schedule a moment with them – don’t wait for serendipity to make it happen for you.
Holiday Art Gallery Success: Make Arrangements
Most holiday photos take place inside, often at night or in other desperately low-light situations. While modern cameraphones can usually handle low-light fairly well, the flash is your enemy, as it will make everything look harsh and flat.
The trick is to arrange things ahead of time. During the day, make sure the windows are opened so natural light comes in like a flood. At night, arrange ahead of time to have as much artificial light as possible and take a few test shots in different spots where you think you’ll pose people or capture moments of holiday cheer on the fly.
Holiday Art Gallery Success: Miscellany
To be frank, planning ahead with your shot list and lighting will go a long way towards giving you the sort of holiday photos you want. The rest of it is fine-tuning:
- Experiment with HDR mode instead of the flash, if your phone offers it. HDR can often give you a deeper, richer photo than the hard flatness of flash photography.
- Empty out your phone’s memory by transferring the entire year’s worth of photos off the phone before the holidays set in. While today’s phones can store a lot of photos, you should be taking your holiday shots at the highest possible quality level – make some space, just in case.
Now, get in there and make some memories. When you’ve gotten the perfect holiday photo, click here and let us transform it into a gorgeous piece of canvas art that you will treasure forever – and be proud of.
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