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The Perfect Christmas Photoshoot

As we approach the festive season, it makes sense for Christmas to be at the forefront of photographers' minds – and not just in the hope of some new gear! It’s a time to spend with family in which decorations, atmosphere and joy are abound, making it the perfect time to break out your camera to start capturing memories.

How To Take A Christmas Portrait | Tutorial Tuesday

In this article, we’ve compiled a selection of ideas, tips and strategies to help you make the most of the merry atmosphere, and capture the character of the season through enchanting Christmas portraits!

Christmas Portrait Ideas

• Shoot candid moments: As Christmas is a time to be spend with loved ones, you can take advantage of all that’s going on to produce Christmas photos to keep as lifelong memories. Family Christmas portrait ideas are countless over this festive period.
• Low-light photography: This strategy can be taken on both indoors or outdoors. Shooting indoors lets you lean into the warmth of candlelight and other sources, and shooting outdoors allows you to take advantage of all the decorations around town.
• Shooting Christmas traditions: Take this opportunity to show off the eccentric ways your folks celebrate Christmas – create candid portraits that mean something to your family, going about the season how you like to do it each year.
• Photographing the big day: If you can find time outside of your Santa Claus double life as a parent this Christmas, capturing the joy of unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning will make memories to last a lifetime. 
• Get your family involved: with Christmas family photography, ‘the more the merrier’ holds true – getting as many as you can in your shot can capture a memory for the whole family to keep. You can even try getting your pets involved if you can, and even test the waters to see if they’ll wear a festive costume for the shot! A group shot is also a great way into Christmas card photography.
• Focus on the details: With so many unique Christmas decorations around the house, you can treat them like props in your portraits. Have your subjects interact with them, or just keep them around for added context to your photos.

Christmas Portrait Photography Techniques

• Use bokeh wisely: The warm flashes of Christmas lights are a golden opportunity to introduce some bokeh to your shots. By shooting on a wide open aperture, you can position your subject in front of a Christmas tree to pick up that iconic bokeh effect in the background. If you’re looking to get even more creative, you can dangle Christmas lights in front of your lens for a stunning framing effect.
• Subject recognition autofocus: This is an exceptional tool to use if you’re shooting candid portraits this Christmas. Having your camera focus immediately on your subjects enjoying the holiday ensures you never miss a moment, and gives you more time to focus on what’s important too!
• Adjusting white balance: To lean into the theme of Christmas, adjusting your in-camera white balance setting to a warmer tone ensures that candlelit feel before getting started with editing your portraits. Alternatively, in the event that we do get some snow this festive season, you may want to cool it down a little to capture the essence of a white Christmas.
• Explore depth of field: while Christmas provides ample opportunity to add bokeh into your photos, sometimes using a wider depth of field includes more context to your portraits, making them stand out and tying in nicely to the theme. In the same way that you approach Christmas lights with a wide aperture, you can stop down to around f/16 to achieve a beautiful starburst effect.

Backgrounds

With most people having their decorations out by the 1st, photographers have plenty of time to start putting together a delightful Christmas scene at home. When putting up your Christmas tree and the other frills that follow suit, you may want to consider how it all ties together for a Christmas background for portrait photography.

The easiest way to do this is by thinking about your lighting. Christmas lighting gives your photos a stunning bokeh to work with in the background, but also provide your subject with flattering rim lighting. For instance, use your tree as the background for portraits – by narrowing the aperture, you bring more detail into the tree. As such a recognisable Christmas staple, you don’t need to do much to invoke a festive feeling – the deep green and warm lights will suffice.

As a general rule, any wintery scene or feature is impactful as a Christmas backdrop too. The light of a fireplace, a cold day outside the window, or even Christmas street lights in town can bring that magical touch to your photos.

If an artificial Christmas photo backdrop is what you’re looking for, then there are plenty of offerings for your Christmas portraits. New creative photography backdrops from Godox simulate intriguing backgrounds, like a starry night or a blurred-out snowy scene. If you’re looking for a studio background, Colorama and Manfrotto have plenty of seamless paper options.

Best lens for portraits this Christmas

Choosing a lens for Christmas photography is quite simple. For a lot of cases, a powerful portrait lens will work wonders – a fast prime lens enables soft bokeh and the highest optical quality, and can let more light in when working with low-light conditions. For environmental shots that create more atmosphere, a wider lens is perfect, but for bringing out details in your subject, a telephoto portrait lens like an 85mm prime will be your go-to.

However, more of the essence of Christmas photography lies in what you’re shooting. It’s all well to say that the best lens for the job will excel, but any standard lens will be enough to capture the essence of the festive season. If you’re doing professional portraits, take the same approach in choosing your lens you would any other portrait, however there’s a great amount of impact you can draw out of a beautiful Christmas scene with any lens in your kit.

Christmas lighting ideas

Lighting is one of the best opportunities to be creative with your portraits this Christmas. As we’ve discussed, Christmas lights are an omnipresent theme, and

Natural light is a hugely impactful tool for a portrait photographer to harness. The cold, cloudy weather of December can tie in perfectly with the soft look you want to create. Taking advantage of low, golden sunlight during golden hour is the best chance you’ll have to suggest the warmth of the late winter sun.

As we’ve discussed, shooting your portraits with Christmas lights is effective, but using dedicated continuous studio lighting can give you much more control over your shots. Standalone LED light panels are a brilliant choice to simulate warmth, coloured light and more – for instance, the Phottix M200R RGB LED light helps you to tastefully add both white and RGB light to your shots.

We hope this article has inspired you to get engaged with portrait photography this festive season. Feel free to engage with our pages on Facebook, Twitter (X) and Instagram – let us know how you get on!

Feel free to explore our leading range of digital cameras, lenses and seasonal offers today. From all of us at Park Cameras, we wish you a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

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By Thom Pyle on 21/12/2024