It’s that time of the year again

It’s November, which means the stores are already stocking Christmas items and you’ve probably started thinking about sending out holiday cards. And many of you send out family photo cards, which means you need those family photos!

You have three options for family photo Christmas cards:

First, book a fall photo session with an area photographer. This is a great idea for many reasons—primarily because you get a lot of beautiful photos of your entire family. But also, if you are usually the one wielding the camera or camera phone, you’re rarely in the shot. And if you hand the camera to a stranger to snap a shot of you all at the beach, or at a baseball game, there’s only the one photo, and someone may have blinked, or one of your kids is pinching the other one, or there’s a pole growing out of someone’s head, or the stranger cut off your heads or feet. If you book a photo session, you set aside an hour or two to be together with your family, looking good, having fun (yes! It will be fun!), and someone else is there to worry about the photo part of it. You can relax.

If you can’t afford that or you simply don’t have time, the second option is to frantically flip through your year’s photos and see if there are any snapshots of your family or your kids that you’d want to send to dozens of your friends, families and maybe even colleagues.

But what if there aren’t any good ones? Now it’s time for the holiday portrait project—take photos of your family members and family unit specifically for the purpose of holiday cards. You might do individual shots of each person, and/or a group photo.

So let’s talk Do’s and Don’ts of Holiday Family Portraits.

Part One: The preparation:

1. You don’t have to make your kids dress up in fancy outfits. If the kids are presentable, let them wear their everyday clothes. It’s a great way to capture who they are right now and keep them comfortable so they’ll be ready to have fun.
2.  You don’t have to all wear matching outfits. Coordinating colors are fine if you really want to, but otherwise wear something comfortable and flattering. Nothing skintight please! Ladies, no cleavage! Dudes, keep your shirts buttoned! Ideally you want solid colors or small stripes, and avoid graphics or large prints. But again, if it’s going to capture who your family is right now, wear it with pride!
3. Bring a prop or two. That can be a fun way to really individualize this year’s photos. If you have a young kid who has a favorite toy or stuffed friend, bring it along! Do you have a bookworm? Take a photo of him or her with their current favorite novel.
4. Scout a good location for a photo: park, playground, forest, backyard, bridge, bench, brick walls, etc. Keep the scene pretty and clean–backgrounds matter!  The focus should be on the people, not the stuff behind you. Bad location for a photo: place with cars in the near background, too many distracting colors or textures. Some color and texture is great—but try to avoid too much.
5. Make sure your background is really a background. Meaning, keep your subject away from it. Don’t stand right in front of the brick wall; take several big steps forward. If you’re in a park or forest, make sure there are trees and grass far behind you. Whenever possible, try to keep people out of the background.
6. Think carefully about timing. Any photographer will tell you to avoid the midday sun, as the light is harsh and the shadows are harsher. You’ve probably seen photos of people in that magic golden hour too, which is roughly an hour before sunset (and I think an hour after sunrise, but geez, who’s up that early?). After you’ve picked out your spot, make sure to go there at a good time. Late afternoon is a good bet. Don’t worry about good weather; a cloudy day is actually great light for photos, since there are no big shadows or squinting to worry about.

Part Two: You’ve got a location, date and time ready to go. Now it’s time to take the photos!

1. Move close! If you’re doing individual portraits, just the subject’s upper body (cut off mid-upper-arm) should be in the photo. This can work for two people too.
2. Move even closer! Don’t be afraid to zoom in (with your lens or with your feet) to just the person’s face. Don’t be afraid to cut off some hair on top or shoulders on the bottom of the frame. If it’s a great face, it counts!
3. If you have a group, don’t back up too far. You don’t want tons of empty space around them, with them being too small relative to the photo. In your camera viewfinder, leave some space around the group on all sides, trying to avoid too much space on one side.
4. Be careful of the sun—if your subject is looking in the direction of the sun, they will be squinting. That’s not a flattering look. We’ll talk more about lighting next time.
5. For the love of Pete, DO NOT SAY CHEESE! I promise you that that is one way to guarantee uncomfortable, fake smiles, which is exactly what you do NOT want, in a holiday card or really in any photo.
6. HAVE FUN! That’s when you get genuine smiles and happy faces. I just read a great piece on Photography Concentrate that had some great advice: take pictures of someone or several someones laughing and make sure to shoot all the way through the laugh. You know, the beginning guffaw, the middle laugh with crinkled eyes and huge grin, as well as the end, where the sound is fading out, and the smile comes down a notch, but the eyes are still grinning (Tyra is a bit of a crazypants, but she’s right about smiling with your eyes).

How to have that fun:

•  Loosen up! Make a face. Photos and photo sessions should be fun, not serious and stressful.
• Tell a joke. Or, ask your kids to tell a joke as you take their picture.
• A classic: have a partner behind you giving you bunny ears over the camera. Kids love bunny ears.
• Challenge your kids to re-enact a scene from this year’s favorite movie.
• Stick out your tongue and/or blow a raspberry. I don’t care if you’re a grown-up taking pictures of another grown-up. At the very least you’ll get a great face and more likely you’ll get a real smile or even a laugh. If you’re taking pictures of a kid, you’ll definitely get a laugh. And maybe a raspberry right back, which is another great photo to have.
• Jump! I guarantee anyone who jumps will A) have a blast and B) smile hugely and genuinely.
• Ask for a Badass face. That will get you a laugh and then hopefully an awesome badass face too.
• Tell the kids to pose however they like. If one is big and one is little, have them try picking each other up or sitting on the other one.

Julie is a part-time photographer based in Brooklyn, NY. As a former English teacher, she will love you if you know the difference between there, their, and they’re. But however you spell, she wants to take your picture and make you look good! Since Julie also loves to travel, her website is Traveling Julie Photography. Find her photo blog here.