Tis the season to be jolly, and take lots of family photos with your DSLR! Are you going to be with your family this holiday season? If so, I’m guessing you’re the de facto family photographer and people will be asking you for your photos after the holiday. In any event, there are some things you can do to make your holiday photos better.

Take More Candid Shots

While posed “perfect” shots (see below) are really pretty, they’re difficult to pull off unless you’re a professional. While he’s technically not a professional, Trey Ratcliff, the gentleman who produced this wonderful piece of art below, may as well be. Trey is an extraordinary, world renown photographer who’s largely responsible for popularizing a relatively new form of digital photography called HDR (high dynamic range). Trey has subsequently garnered a lot of well deserved attention. I’ll discuss HDR in a separate post. And so you don’t feel bad, you should know that most of the photos Trey reveals to the public are effectively masterpieces. You, too, are capable of producing beautiful HDR pictures. But in the meantime you ought to be going for more candid shots! Candid photos are where you’ll capture the true faces of surprise, love, anticipation, and all of the other emotions that come along with the season.

Don’t Forget the Details

Lots of what makes the holidays so magical and special are the details of ornaments, the colors, the ribbons… the little things! So try your hand at some macro photography and get up close to your subject.

Photograph Your Christmas Tree In Low Light

Bust out your tripod and brush up on your your low light photography techniques and get a dramatic shot of your beautiful tree in low light. As you now know, using fast glass is a great way to get better performance in limited light situations. If you want to stay away from using the flash too much, try renting a super nice lens for a week from Borrow Lenses. You’ll be so happy with the quality images you capture – a Christmas gift in and of itself!

• The 70-200 would be an excellent choice.

Use Burst Mode

When you’re taking pictures of little miss special opening up her present, use burst mode (continuous shooting mode) on your camera. That way you’ll stand more of a chance of capturing that special gleam in her eye and that moment of pure glee. This burst mode is a tactic commonly employed by sports photographers, but it works well with photographing people opening gifts, too!

Be Casual & Keep Your Camera On You

If you casually invite your family outside, or all to stand over by the tree, you’ll get more relaxed, candid shots. If you try too hard to pose people or formally announce that you’re about to take a photo they’ll tense up and you might end up with cheesy grins.

Also, simply keep your camera slung over your shoulder. That’s a good practice anyway. But if you do it this holiday season you’ll capture some precious moments, for sure!