Photo Stop Preparing For The Holidays   Jorinde van Dongen

In the next few months some of the most important holidays of the year are coming up and I personally find those times one of the hardest to photograph! But as a scrapper you always want to get those great pictures for your pages! Although sometimes that just doesn’t happen. After being left with some totally disappointing holiday photos, I started thinking. Suddenly I realized that it’s funny that we spend so much time in deciding what to wear, who to invite and what gifts to give, but when it come to taking pictures we think we can just grab our cameras and snap away. To save myself from more total disasters I decided to prepare myself. Here are some of the things I did:

Photo shoot. For Halloween and Christmas I thought it was a fun idea to have a photo shoot of the kids all dressed up. My kids always have a great time when I build a little studio and have them as my models! For great tips of how to shoot photos indoors, have a look in the ScrapStreet Photo Stop from February 2008!

Test shoot. When I have time, I do a test shoot before the holiday starts. If I was planning to take pictures in our living room, I would find out where to get the best results by trying out different angles in the room to take pictures from! This way, when the time comes to take the real photos I know where to position my subject and myself. It is also helpful to find out which lights in the room are better on or off. When planning to shoot in the afternoon with not a lot of light, be prepared to use a tripod or have something stable to place your camera on to get those sharp photos. Another helpful tip is to try to find a neutral background for your photo, like a wall or curtain, so that there is not too much distraction from the main subject! More or less the same goes for planning to shoot pictures outside, find a good location where there is not too much happening on the background.

Still life. But photographing people is not easy; therefore I also like to make pictures of subjects that are more patient with me, still lifes! To make sure that I have some really good pictures to scrap, I love to shoot the beautifully set dinner table or of lots of Halloween candy in a bowl. Just any still life that makes me think of that certain holiday. The great thing about this is that I have all the time to position everything the way I like it! Below you can find an example photo.

Make a plan. I always like to take a little time before hand, to think about what would be fun to scrap. That way I can be sure that I have my camera ready at the right time! Personally I love to taken picture not just of the holiday but also of the preparation. In the photo below my kids are helping me out in the kitchen.

My last tip might sound a bit silly to mention, but it has happened to me and that’s why I make it one of the most important parts of my preparation. I am talking about making sure that the battery of my camera is fully loaded the memory card completely empty!

I hope you’ll have fun shooting those holidays pictures and get some great results!

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