Setting the Stage: Prepping Your Christmas Tree for a Perfect Shot
The Christmas tree is a common sight for many households during the holidays. It’s a time-honored tradition, but also provides the opportunity to showcase your decorating skills and make your home feel festive for the season. While beautiful to look at, capturing photos of your tree can be challenging since lighting, background, and positioning are all key elements that will make or break your pictures.
When taking photographs, you may feel like you’re swimming against the tide — with so many flashy high-definition photos of glowing Christmas trees online and in magazines. But it’s easy to get a great shot of that cherished Christmas tree with a bit of experimenting and by keeping some simple tips in mind.
Here are expert pointers on how to get great shots no matter what type of camera you’re using.
- Set up your lights so they shine upward on the tree and onto the walls. This will create more depth and give you a wider variety of color options in post-processing.
- Use the “fill flash” technique to create even light across the entire length of your subject.
- Use artificial lighting because it’s easier than using natural light portraiture, especially when it’s dark outside and you’re trying to get a wide shot that takes in your whole Christmas tree display.
- If you use artificial lighting indoors along with black backdrops and seamless paper, you can make your subjects stand out from their background without having to edit too much later on in post-production.
- Avoid shooting straight at or directly behind your subject as these angles make them appear smaller than they actually are.
- Make sure that your height is raised so that you can capture the entire Christmas tree.
- Use the “fill flash” technique to create even lighting on your subject.
- If you are taking photographs of people indoors, avoid black backgrounds and seamless sheets, which can make your subject appear washed out or too transparent.
- Using artificial lighting indoors along with a lower height will help to prevent a strong shadow from appearing in the background of your photograph so that your subject will stand out from it.
- Enable your flash or use natural daylight to illuminate your subject.
- If your subjects are indoors, avoid using black backgrounds and white seamless sheets as it can make you subject appear as washed out or transparent.
- Using artificial lighting indoors will make it easier for you to capture a photo of your subject without having have an unwanted shadow in the background. This technique is commonly referred to as “bounce flash.”
- If you’re taking photographs of people indoors, use the lowest aperture setting possible to make sure that there is no distortion effect on the background behind them.
- Adjust the height of your camera so that your subject is positioned within your frame.
- Use flash to eliminate dark shadows cast by objects in the background.
- If you are photographing people indoors, use soft, yellow light from a lamp instead of flat light from a white ceiling.
Happy snapping!