It doesn’t matter if you have a snazzy camera or your trusty iPhone, capturing special moments during the holiday season can be doable and stress-free. If you’re not sure where to start I wrote a list of must-have fun holiday photos of your family. This list isn’t anything crazy and will give you some amazing fun holiday photos from the season. But before we get there I also want to mention some tips on how to capture these photos in the simplest ways possible. It’s time to channel your inner photographer and let the magic happen!
Tips for Capturing Your Fun Holiday Photos
Be spontaneous with your camera
Snap a bunch of photos in different moments and then put your phone/camera aside. Sort through all of the photos you took later on to pick out the best ones and delete the others. This allows you to capture those split-second emotions and happy moments without your camera/phone becoming a distraction and burden.
Use your self-timer
Get in the photo and make sure that you are in a lot of them! If you don’t have a camera, prop your phone up on a couple of books and get a great picture of the whole family together! Another idea is while you’re doing an activity like decorating the tree or making cookies, take a short video. Just a minute or so. Then you can go back through it and screenshot moments in the video and turn them into photos. Edit them in the Lightroom App using my FREE presets voilá beautiful candid holiday photos!
Capture the details
This is something I love to do during my sessions and I encourage you to do it as well. Look for the little details, like rosy cheeks, messy hands, and little fingers holding ornaments. Take close-up photos of those as well as big-picture kind of photos.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, don’t try and make it perfect!
Take pictures of the in-between, when maybe a kid is melting down or the tree is unevenly decorated or all the messy decorated cookies are half-eaten. Those pictures tell stories and those are the stories that will be told for years to come. Don’t be afraid to document the real stuff.
Now onto the list! Check out these fun holiday photos ideas and let me know what you think! Did I miss any big moments worth capturing? The most important thing to remember is to look for the love and the realness and capture those moments.
Must-Have Fun Holiday Photos
- Decorating the Christmas tree
- Making Christmas cookies
- Opening presents
- Chopping down your tree
- Decorating gingerbread houses
- Playing in the snow (if that sort of thing happens where you’re at)
- Everyone wearing matching pajamas
- Reenacting the nativity
- Kids with their favorite ornament
- Reading Christmas stories
- Sitting on Santa’s lap
- Writing a letter to Santa
- Putting cookies and carrots out for Santa and the reindeer
- Driving to look at Christmas lights
- Cooking Christmas dinner
- Kids with their favorite Christmas gift
- Sleeping/sitting around the Christmas tree
- Dancing and singing to Christmas songs
- Doing a holiday craft
- Kids in Santa hats
And if you want more holiday activities to capture check out my blog post! I wrote a huge bucket list about easy and family-friendly holiday activities this year. Lots of good fun holiday photos in those moments!
