Friends and family will be gathering together this holiday season and, of course, millions of photographs will be taken. Of course, the main point of holiday pics is to capture the moment so that good times can be remembered, and aesthetic concerns aren't necessarily high on the list of objectives when the cameras come out.

Nevertheless, it can't hurt to try to maximize the impact of your holiday snaps by using some tricks of the photographers' trade in order to make the most of the moment. Russell James of The Shot recently offered up some advice on holiday picture taking.

First of all, he says, “be spontaneous.”

“Don't try to always set up your pictures by having your subjects look to the camera and smile. Around the holidays, we kill a lot of pictures when we try to set them up Instead, look for the action, follow it, and shoot it.” This was a lesson that was challenging even for the photographers on The Shot, as we saw when they were tasked with shooting volleyball players.

To avoid the bland look of photos taken with a flash, “use other sources of light, such as Christmas tree lights, fireplaces, everyday lamps- this will enable you to capture pictures with more of a holiday feel.” (Russell does caution you to avoid overhead lighting, though.)

Professional photographers use manual settings to maximize control. This might not be possible with many consumer cameras, but you can fudge things. Russell advises, “To get the most out of holiday lighting, simply take the flash setting off your camera, then turn up the ISO setting. You can do this on a digital camera by changing the ISO preset number, which is usually set at 100 or 200, to as high as it can go (for most cameras, it's either 800 or 1200).”

The Shot host also recommends having a point person for group shots to wrangle the subjects and organizing the gang while you focus on getting the shot.

His number one piece of advice, though, is to have an emotional connection with your subjects. Don't be so focused on the “how” of getting your shot that you forget the “why,” i.e., memorializing happy times with friends and family during the holidays.


- Leslie Seaton, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: CBS News
(Image courtesy of VH1)