Tips for Taking Better Pictures This Holiday Season

The holidays are a popular time for people to use their cameras. What you need are some tricks for taking better pictures.

You might consider asking your photo staff to produce a slideshow or video about how to take better holiday pictures. Here are a few of my favorite tricks:
 

• The rule of thirds: Don't center the subject. If you are shooting a sunset, for example, the sun should not be in the middle. Position it within the frame to one side or the other. Have the horizon or the sky take up one-third of the image, not half.
   

• Back to the light: Don't shoot into the light. Use the light to your advantage, shooting with the sun to your back and in the face of the subject. 
   

• Compose with the background in mind: There is nothing worse than having a tree poking out from behind a person's head or having random people in the background who distract from the image. What does the background convey about the setting?
   

• You need great light: Sunrise and sunset are what Kenny Irby, my Poynter visual journalism colleague, calls "the magic hours." The light is mellow and colorful during these hours. Get up early; you will not regret it.
   

• Move closer: Snapshots are notorious for being too far away. Move in. Especially if you intend to post online, close-ups work better than medium or wide shots because images are usually very small online.
   

• Look for "peak" action: The best pictures occur when the action is at its peak. When someone OPENS a box, the person has a surprised look. THAT is the picture you want -- not a picture of the person after he or she has opened the gift. Take a photo of the hostess delivering the Christmas turkey to the table, not a picture of the turkey.
   

• Look for reaction: Reaction shots are nearly always the best shots. Anticipate what people will do when they're surprised.
   

• Tripods: If you are shooting in low light, you need a tripod to steady your camera or you will get a blurry mess. I recently read in David Pogue's New York Times technology blog that the top of a lamp where the lampshade screws on is the same diameter as camera tripod mounts. In a pinch, he says, you can screw your camera onto a lamp to get a steady, even-lit shot. 

A word about video
Do not zoom or pan unless you're dealing with a motivated movement. If you are following action, then a pan makes sense, but otherwise don't do it. Zooming is something amateurs do; give kids a camera and they will zoom. Zoom with your feet, not with your lens. Great video with crappy sound is not fun to watch. Move closer, and pay attention to ambient sound that will wipe out the audio you are really trying to capture.

It is usually best to use video cameras that allow for external microphones instead of using built-in condenser mics. Shoot sequences that you can edit together (wide, medium, close-up, super close-up.) Again, shoot actions and reactions. The photographer/videographer should not talk much. Viewers want to hear the subject of the video, not you.

PC World offers some additional tips for taking holiday photos.

Photographer Tracey Clark also offers some pointers, including:

• Pack the camera -- Goes without saying? I forgot mine last year in the rush to get the car packed.
   
• Make sure your batteries are charged and you have extras and/or the recharge packed.
   
• Pack extra memory cards -- Have them empty and ready to fill up.
   
• Put someone "on photos" -- Our family has someone on drinks, main course, dessert. Why not put someone on photos so that in the craziness of the day they don't get forgotten?

Credit: The Poynter Institute