Photo How To

The holidays are upon us and they offer a great opportunity to capture festive memories for family and friends to enjoy. The quick video below will help you get into the Christmas spirit, with some fun and easy tips for making Christmas photos as home.

This tutorial comes from Marc Newton at The School of Photography, a great source of how-to tips for all things photographic. His Christmas ideas are simple to accomplish, and all you’ll need apart from a basic camera is a couple strings of lights and a willing model. And, best yet, you can recycle some of these tips for other holidays throughout the year.

As you’ll see, it helps to use a family member as an assistant to handle the props while you work some magic with your camera. Newton provides the exposure settings necessary to get great results. You’ll be shooting in manual mode, and he makes this really easy.

The video covers composition, the importance of using a tripod, and how employing your camera’s self-timer simplifies the process. That’s because you’ll be shooting at very slow shutter speeds. Newton also demonstrates the proper focusing techniques when using lights in front of your model.

In the behind-the-scenes portion of the shoot, you’ll watch how Newton poses his model and creates memorable Christmas images. It’s all a lot of fun, and there’s a link for Newton’s free photography eBook in the description below the video.

There are a variety of great tutorials on The School of Photography's website. And be sure to check out a helpful how-to we posted last Christmas, with four great holiday portrait tips.