Do you ever feel that your collection of Christmas photos and videos isn’t complete? Read on and I’ll show you how to organize and store all your photos, videos, and more in one place.
But first, here are tips for taking Christmas photos so they’ll be fun to look at for years—and decades—to come.
Christmas memories are often among our most treasured moments to reflect on. They don’t have to be taken perfectly but they’ll look good if you remember 3 points:
- Composition
- Light
- Subject
Photo by Photo by Antoni Shkraba, Pexels
Composing and Framing Your Christmas Photo
Top photographers use proper framing. Think of your smartphone or camera’s screen as a grid with 9 squares. Frame your subject to one side of the screen, taking up about 6 squares instead of having the subject dead center.
Have an interesting background like Christmas lights or other decorations. Don’t shoot directly into lights so you don’t get glare.
Have wide shots with a group, but take close-up shots, too. In years to come, you’ll remember smiles and eyes.
Lighting for Your Christmas Photo
Use as much natural light as possible.
“What is it about light that makes it so important to the ultimate quality of your photos? Character. At its simplest, light is emotion,” a quote via Photography Life (link at the end of this post).
Many photographers will say that cloudy days are among the best for the right type of lighting.
Other tips include shooting photos at midday. Turn off all the lights except for those on the tree and keep curtains or doors open to let in as much sunlight as possible.
The Subject for Your Christmas Photos
Taking photos during gift openings on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning is a given as a subject, especially with young children. If you’re an empty nester and your adult children are scattered across the country or globe, then snap a selfie to save as a contrast with photos when the kids were young.
You might have favorite places like tree decorating ceremonies, lakes, or specific neighborhoods where you’ve taken Christmas shots in previous years.
If you’re attending Christmas services then one idea is to catch a shot of your family outside the church with decorative lights in the background.
Photo by Marianna Curran
Most everyone uses smartphones, but one of my friends and photo coaching colleagues, Marianne Curran, uses a camera for taking photos. Imagine that.
I featured her in a blog post earlier this year and she says the quality from a camera is so much better than from a smartphone. You can read her thoughts here: Her Method to Reduce the Madness of Organizing Photos and Storing Them Permanently.
Store Your Photos in One Place
So what will you do with your Christmas photos once they’re taken?
Most people upload them to social media or send them to a site with a low monthly fee where they rent space.
In both cases, you’re giving up control and your data can be used for marketing purposes.
Try the platform FOREVER®–it’s a space where you can have all your most meaningful Christmas memories in one place.
I store my current photos and videos on FOREVER® along with memories from past generations like my father’s many 8mm home movies. It’s a space I own and that’s given me peace of mind.
Why?
I’m not worried that my Terms of Service (TOS) will get revoked because I’m an owner of my FOREVER® space—I’m not renting or using it for free.
I can easily find all my Christmas photos from decades ago and the ones from last year so I can easily see which ones I want to take this year. All my most meaningful memories are in one place.
I’ll have my photos of Christmas 2022 alongside photos of Christmas past—like this one in 1965 when my sister and I visited Santa Claus:
The Santa tradition continues
My parents took that photo and I had it digitized using FOREVER® and then placed it in a digital album that looks similar to this:
My main album, Travel Memories, has sub-albums or nested albums
You can see in this album that I have photos from 1996, pre-digital era, stored with ones from 2018 and present day.
Try FOREVER®
See how easy FOREVER® is to use. Try it with 2 free GB of storage space so you can see what it’s like to upload and organize your photos and videos.
Using FOREVER® gets rid of scattered photos or “photo guilt.”
Amy Vanden Berg, photo coach
That’s a term from a friend of mine, Amy Vanden Berg. She’s a photo coach whose father died unexpectedly and how she and her siblings easily skimmed through several hundred photos organized in their FOREVER® account to find photos for his memorial service.
You can read her experience here: How Safely Stored and Well Organized Photos Bring Hope and Peace of Mind.
Store Your Family Memories Permanently–Guaranteed
Digitizing our older photos and videos while storing our newest ones is a way to leave a legacy and show future generations what our lives were like. We can pass along values and give our great-grandchildren and their grandchildren a sense of identity and belonging.
FOREVER® is guaranteed to be accessible for a lifetime, plus 100 years and even longer than that.
I’m Here to Help
Me and mom today
My passion as a photo coach is helping you chronicle your photos, videos, and even handwritten letters that people used to write.
Contact me with any questions you have regarding photo organizing, digitizing, and storage.
FOREVER® has numerous benefits and you can learn about them on the Events page of my website. Check dates and times and come meet new friends during our online weekly sessions.
Don’t forget to try FOREVER® yourself. Click here to get 2 free GB of storage space.
Here are article links to the lighting suggestions above:
Photography Life.com: The Three Elements of a Good Photo
Blesser House.com: How to Take DIY Christmas Photos
