Tips from a professional photographer to capture lasting holiday memories of your small, over-excited moving targets
By Kristi York
When I asked professional photographer Julie Tauro for some sample holiday shots of her three children, she flat out laughed. Although she has owned and operated her Kitchener-Waterloo studio, Tauro Photography, for more than 10 years, she confessed that when it comes to pictures of her own kids, “it’s a case of the cobbler’s children—no shoes for us!”
After a bit of digital digging, Tauro did find a few candid shots on her iPhone, and was more than happy to share her thoughts on holiday photography.
To start, she has some “big picture” advice for parents feeling stressed about getting the perfect shot of their little one, to preserve the memories of this special time of year.
“Just enjoy the process of taking photos of your children,” says Tauro. “You want to capture moments and expressions in your photos, not necessarily perfection. Those images will mean far more to you later on, when your children are surly teenagers who don’t bounce out of bed on Christmas morning.”
Next, she offers some general tips when you do pull out your camera:
- Having a digital camera means you can take lots of images (and delete the duds later). Be experimental and try different angles. Get down low, shoot from further away, or move directly above the scene and look straight down.
- In addition to asking the kids to look at you and smile, try to capture them when they are unaware. You may surprise yourself with some special images that are not posed in a traditional way.
Photo by Julie Tauro
- Watch for clutter or other distractions in the background. For example, if you are going to capture the frenzy of gift opening, maybe move any cardboard boxes or baskets of laundry safely out of view. Fill the frame with the most important part of your image.
- Where possible, turn off the flash and use natural light to give the image more warmth. Turn on all available room lights and open the window coverings. (Of course, if the lighting is still too dim, feel free to rely on the auto-flash.)
- Have everything ready, so you don’t waste time or miss cute photo ops. Empty your digital media card in advance, and charge or replace your camera’s batteries.
- Photograph some of the simpler activities, like opening boxes of ornaments, making crafts, decorating cookies, or writing letters. These little moments add up to tell the whole story of your holiday.
In addition, Tauro suggests these special considerations if you’re “tapping” (rather than snapping) pictures with your smartphone:
Photo by Julie Tauro
- Watch the backlighting. If your child has a bright window or sky in behind, your camera may not be able to adjust the exposure properly. If possible, keep the area behind her the same brightness as the lighting on her face.
- Avoid using the zoom feature in the camera app, as it is just a digital zoom and can reduce the image quality. Whenever you can, zoom in by moving yourself closer to the subject.
- Be sure your camera settings are at the highest quality possible. You can usually adjust this in your phone’s settings tab, or if you’re using a third-party camera app, within the app itself.
- For maximum flexibility, don’t use filters as you take the original photos. Take the photo with your phone or camera app, then play with filters later and create copies, keeping your original filter-free.
Finally, while smartphones are a wonderful repository for photos (and an easy way to show images of your little one to friends and relatives), Julie implores parents to “please print your photos. I have heard too many sad stories about people losing their photos to corrupted phones or hard drives. It is simple and inexpensive to upload your images to an in-store photo lab and pick them up a few hours later. You will enjoy them for years to come, rather than just for a day or two on Facebook. My teenagers love pulling out the photo albums and flipping through them.”
Candid family photos courtesy of Julie Tauro’s personal collection. For more information about Julie’s professional work, please visit www.taurophotography.com. For Kristi York’s adventures with DIY Christmas card photos, click here.
