Category: Photography Tips

Where to Take Photos for Family Christmas Cards

Published September 1, 2024

You want to take the best family Christmas card photo, but you’re not a professional photographer, and you don’t know what kind of backdrop to use. You got this! With a little creativity, you can make just about any location work.

Check out this list of creative Christmas card photo location ideas. And we have ideas for everyone, whether you live in an urban, suburban, or rural area.

Local park, forest preserve, or natural area

When you get out into nature—no matter the time of year—background ideas abound. Go in summer when the prairie is full of flowers, in fall when the leaves are turning the brilliant autumnal hues, or in winter as the snow begins to fall.

A few factors to look for:

Find a consistent background. All trees, all shrubs, or all flowers. A busy background takes the focus away from you.
Watch the tree trunks! When composing the group photo, make sure it doesn’t look like a tree is coming out of someone’s head.
Be mindful of sunlight. Midday on a sunny day isn’t the best time to take portraits. The best lighting—for any type of camera—is in a shaded area where the light is even, and no one is left squinting in the sun.

Please keep these things in mind if taking a family Christmas photo in nature:

Stay on trails and grassy areas. Landscapers and land managers work hard to maintain these spaces. Whether it’s an ornately-designed park or a wild space, be mindful of where you step.
Watch out for the little critters. In many areas of the U.S., ticks are present until it snows or gets really cold, so be sure to wear bug spray if needed, and check after the photo shoot to make sure no unwanted visitors came home with you.

Two women and a young girl smile as the late afternoon sunlight hits them from behind. They are sitting in the grass, under a large tree.

Find a wall

Brick, wood, a colorful painted mural. Your family can lean against the wall, or have it in the background. If it’s in the background, use the portrait setting or larger aperture to blur the background a bit.

Consider a wall at your home first, then look at public places. Be considerate of private property; if it’s a business, just ask! They might be willing to let you take your holiday card photos at their location, especially if you tag them on social media if you share your photo.

A mom, dad, and their two young daughters smile as they stand against a light blue wall.

Evergreen trees

A row or grouping of evergreen trees provide a subtle texture in the background, a pop of color, and a hint of Christmas—even if there isn’t any snow on them.

At your home—with or without Christmas decorations

You don’t have to clean your entire house for this! Just the one area for your portrait. You can all sit on the couch, stand on the porch, in the backyard, or in the middle of the living room. Adding Christmas decorations is entirely optional!

A mom, dad, and their two daughters sit in a hammock in their backyard in the bright sunlight. It is a casual family photo.

With animals

If you have a dog, cat, bird, lizard, or even some fish, include them in the picture! You can get a nice, posed family portrait for your Christmas cards, or be a bit goofy. Get some candid shots of the dog being goofy, the lizard wearing a little hat, or your bird enthusiastically flapping its wings.

If you don’t have animals—but want some in your Christmas card picture—you have options! Here are some ideas:

Go to the zoo. Get your favorite animal in the background.
Petting zoos for a more intimate shot. Buy a small bag of feed for the goats and get ready to smile!
Go to a pond, get some ducks or geese in the background. Just let them do their thing, they’ll just happily paddle in the background while you smile and say cheese. But please don’t feed them bread.
Know a farmer? Ask them to borrow their cows. Ok, so not really borrow, but have them in the background of your image. This is perfect whether you live in a rural area or are just passing through. You can find farms like this through social media, on a list of CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture), or even as a tourist destination.

A man and women lie on their stomachs in the grass with three schnauzer dogs.

At a party, celebration, or family event

If you want a formal photo, have someone take your picture at a wedding when you’re all dressed up. If you want something more casual, consider a birthday party or summer picnic. Any event will do. Just get the picture before the kids run around too much! Thanksgiving is an ideal time to snap a nice family portrait.

Where do you take family photos for Christmas cards?

We’d love to hear where you’ve taken your photos for family Christmas cards. Someplace weird, wonderful, or creative! Feel free to share what you’ve done below.

Hi, we’re Studio Style! We design and manufacture photo insert cards, custom photo folders, paper and cardboard picture frames, cello bags, and more. We work with professional photographers, event planners, party pros, and, well, people who like to take pictures! Check out our photo framing solutions at StudioStyle.com or give us a call at (800) 346-3063.

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Mastering Night Photography: Tips & Tricks

Mastering night photography: tips and tricks

Mastering Night Photography: Tips & Tricks

Published August 13, 2024

Night photography has many unique perks and is an incredibly fun and creative outlet.

But… it also has its challenges.

Taking photos at night is completely different than taking photos during the day. Let’s start with the main source of light for daytime photos: the sun! At night, you lose that important light source, instead relying on ambient light or additional artificial light.

Here’s the cool thing: night photography provides the photographer and the viewer with another perspective of a scene they don’t get during the day. For example, thunderstorms, meteors, northern lights, and fireworks, are much more brilliant—or just plain more visible—during the evening hours.

If you’re interested in adventuring outside with your camera at night, we’ve compiled some night photography tips that will help make your evening photo shoot a successful one.

Car headlights trail in a long-exposure photo taken on a misty night at a railroad crossing.

Recommended Equipment for Night Photography

First, let’s talk about your tools. The equipment listed below is immensely helpful in night photography.

If you’re serious about taking photos at night, you’ll want to consider investing in these pieces. Some of these are must haves (camera, tripod, and remote shutter release), some will just make your life a little easier:

DSLR or Mirrorless Camera
Tripod
Remote Shutter Release (aka Remote Trigger)
Extra Camera Batteries
Flashlight
Lens Hood

DSLR or Mirrorless Camera

The first item is the most obvious. But it’s important that you have the right kind of camera.

When shooting at night, you’ll want to manually change your aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. It’s important to have a DSLR or a mirrorless camera so that you’re able to adjust these settings. “Point and shoot” cameras and smart phone cameras may have a lot of megapixels that allow you to take great photos during the day, but you can’t fully customize your settings.

Although most smart phones have a “night mode” or the option to change your aperture, it’s not the same; this is a digital version. Much like digital zoom can’t beat an optical zoom lens, a digital aperture adjustment isn’t the same as an optical aperture adjustment.

Tripod

A tripod is necessary in certain situations like long exposure photography. But not all-night photography is long exposure photography. If you have a lens that opens wide (aperture) of 1.8 or lower you may be able to do some hand-held photography with a high ISO. A general rule of thumb is if your shutter speed is slower than 1/50 of second then you’ll want a tripod.

On windy nights you’ll want to use the hook in the middle of your tripod. Many tripods have these so you can hook a sandbag to help weigh the tripod down, giving it more stability in the wind.

A photographer stands next to their camera on a tripod, which is pointed at skyscrapers at night. — Photo from Unsplash

Remote Trigger

Also known as a remote shutter release, this tool is very helpful in long exposure situations. Since your camera needs to be completely still, physically pressing the shutter release button can move the camera, even in the slightest. This can make your image blurry, and nothing ruins an awesome shot like some unintentional softness.

While you don’t need a remote trigger, this is the only way you can successfully use the “bulb” setting on some cameras.

Extra Camera Batteries

While extra batteries aren’t necessary for night photography, they can come in handy. Here’s why:

Long exposures can cause your camera battery to drain at a higher rate than normal.
Temperature can also affect battery life, so keep this in mind when shooting in cold temperatures.

Keep extra batteries close to you (like in your pocket) so your body heat can help keep them warm on cold nights. Or keep the batteries in a warm place and retrieve them as needed.

Flashlight

A flashlight can be helpful for finding your gear, finding your way, and safety reasons. You can also use a flashlight to “paint light” into your foreground. For example, if you’re taking a picture of a scene and exposing for the night sky, you can use a flashlight to brighten up the foreground to give your image some more depth.

Lens Hood

This is a tool that screws onto the end of your lens that helps block light that hits your lens and causes lens flares. Lens flares often happen when you shooting directly towards the sun during daylight hours, but it can happen at night too. If there are a lot of artificial lights around it can sometimes be hard to avoid light rays hitting your camera lens. A lens hood helps with this dramatically. You don’t need this to shoot at night but it is helpful to have.

Hood is attached to a camera lens, which is sitting on a dark blanket with subtle light hitting the lens.

Technical Night Photography Tips:

Now that we’ve discussed the equipment that’s helpful in your night photography adventures, let’s move onto tips to use while you are shooting at night.

Shoot in Raw

Yes, shooting in raw causes large files and is not ALWAYS necessary, but it’s helpful if you want to do non-destructive edits.

When practicing night photography in urban or suburban areas there are often many different types of artificial lights. These different light sources can cast different colors on your scene, depending on the type of bulb that’s used. If you’re using auto white balance or are unsure of what white balance setting you should use, shooting in Raw will help with adjusting that color in post processing.

A lit-up carnival ride spins at night in a park, revealing colorful trails of light against the dark night sky.

Use Manual Mode

You’ll want full control over your camera settings for the best night photography. Shooting in manual mode at night is a great way to get to know your camera and its capabilities. Utilize your internal camera meter and adjust accordingly. If you’re shooting in an urban setting, you may find yourself surrounded by artificial light. Using a small aperture, (F22 or higher for example) will give lights a “starburst” effect to the rays of light it emits. This can be a cool-looking effect in your photos.

A river at night, surrounded by brightly-lit buildings and a bridge.

A river at night with light reflecting in the river. The water looks smooth because the shutter was open for 25 seconds.

These two photos above are of the same scene on the same night but with vastly different settings. The photo on the left was shot at an aperture of F4 and the shutter was open for 1.3 seconds. The photo on the right is shot with an aperture of F22 and the shutter was open for 25 seconds. Both shots were with an ISO of 400. The image on the left has more definition in the water whereas the image on the right has no texture/definition in the water due to the longer exposure. Additionally the light beams from the street lights on the right have that “starburst” look due to the small aperture whereas the photo on the left does not.

Safety first! Be aware of your surroundings.

When out at night, in low light, you need to be hyper vigilant and pay attention to what’s going on around you. Be careful when walking around, especially in more rural areas where there might not as much light. Keeping a flashlight with your night photography gear is a must!

Test Your Settings

Shooting at night affords you the opportunity to test which settings will give you the most desirable outcome.

For example, you may be shooting on a tripod but you set your ISO high—let’s say 1600. Being that it’s night, this high ISO setting might make sense. However, the higher the ISO, the more noise you have in your image. Since you have a tripod, you can experiment with adjusting your shutter speed and aperture so you can have a lower ISO.

If you don’t have a tripod and have to hold your camera instead, you’ll want to use a higher ISO so your shutter can be faster.

The northern lights appear over a house, in subtle shades of purple.

Additional Night Photography Tips

Venture out at dusk. Don’t wait until it is completely dark. Go while there’s still some light so you can get your bearings and get your creative juices flowing.

When shooting lightning, leave your shutter open for 15-20 seconds and adjust your aperture accordingly. You will never catch lightning if you are trying to time the shutter release at the same time as a bolt strikes. Wait until the lightning strikes with your shutter open, then once it hits, close the shutter.

Have fun! This one is a must. 🙂

Now that you have some helpful tips to help with night photography, go start shooting!

A bolt of lightning flashes behind houses and cars.

Hi, we’re Studio Style!

We design and manufacture custom photo folders, cardboard picture frames, photo mats, photo insert cards, and other event photo packaging solutions. We work with professional photographers, event planners, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and people who just like taking pictures. And we’d love to work with you!

Check out our solutions at StudioStyle.com or give us a call at (800) 346-3063.

Unless otherwise noted, all photos in this post were taken by our very own Amanda Pomplin, who is one of our customer service superstars. She went to school for Photography Technology, and before joining our team, worked as a lab technician and photo editor at a photo printing lab. She (clearly) photographs a variety of subjects, always capturing something creative (check out her landscape photography tips). We love seeing the end result. If you want to chat photography (and photo folders), ask to talk to Amanda!

Car headlights and taillights streak down a city street at night, with lights from the shops illuminating the area.

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From Mundane to Magnificent: Composition Techniques for Memorable Landscape Photography

From Mundane to Magnificent: Composition Techniques for Memorable Landscape Photography

Published July 26, 2023

If you have a vacation planned and you want to take some awesome landscape shots of your exotic (or not so exotic) vacation spot, we have some tips for you.

You don’t need to be a professional photographer or have a fancy camera to take great photos. Most times, a great image comes down to how it was composed. We’ve compiled some helpful landscape photography composition tips for you to reference during your next scenic trip.

Landscape photography is generally defined as images of a natural scene. A landscape photo can be of an ocean, a field, mountains, rivers, or basically any place found in nature.

Snow-capped mountains behind a river valley with green forested area in the foreground

A few bits of technical advice for taking landscape pictures

When you find yourself out in the world—either on vacation, hiking, or even a walk around town—you may find an exciting and beautiful view that you want share with others. If you don’t have a “fancy camera,” no worries! You can shoot landscape photography using your phone. With most phone cameras, you’re unable to change your aperture; the phone will set it for you.

And if you do shoot with a DLSR or mirrorless camera, stay tuned! This article is about photo composition; we’ll leave the technical camera aspects for another blog post. But a few basics:

When shooting a landscape, you generally want all the components in the photo to be in focus.

If you have a DSLR or a mirrorless camera with manual setting capabilities, think about the camera settings before you start shooting. If you’re not a professional photographer and don’t have a camera with manual mode, you can still shoot unforgettable landscape photos using your phone or point and shoot camera.

For shooting landscape photography, a smaller aperture (f/11 or smaller) is better. This allows you to have a larger depth of field; more of the scene will be in focus regardless of how close or far the objects are in your image.

We’ve put together a few easy-to-follow tips for better landscape photography. Follow these tips so you can take a unique image that doesn’t look like every other photo that you see on social media.

Instead of just whipping out your phone or camera and snapping a quick photo, pause and think of this:

How do you want your viewer’s eyes to navigate the photo?

A landscape photograph should be visually appealing and keep your viewer’s attention. This is why the composition of your image is so important. You want your viewer’s eyes to be able to explore your image easily and keep the viewer intrigued. Composition tools can help show the viewer’s eyes “the way” to navigate the photo.

Let’s talk about the following simple composition tools that will help you compose your next image:

Leading Lines
Foreground/Middle Ground/Background
Horizon Line
Reflections
Natural Framing

Leading Lines

Finding “leading lines” in a scene can help compose an interesting photo and allow your eyes to have a clear path throughout your photo. Leading lines don’t have to be literal lines, but rather a change in the topography. Leading lines can also be actual lines, such as a road or a railroad track that navigates your eyes into the photo.

See the cracks in the foreground of the above image. The cracks create lines for your eyes to follow through the rest of the image.

Some craggy, snow-dusted mountains are in the background. A fissured, rocky landscape in the foreground has lines that draw you eye to the mountains.

Foreground/Middle Ground/Background

Another composition tool is including a foreground, middle-middle ground and background in your photo.

Take a look at the image below. This composition tool helps breaks up the visual texture of the image and gives the viewer’s eyes some variety. The water is the foreground, the trees being the middle ground, and the background being the mountains and sky. This breaks up the image into three parts, giving the photo more visual variety.

A clear river flows slowly in the foreground, a dense forest of evergreen trees are directly behind it, and a craggy, rocky mountain sits behind the tranquil scene.

Keep Your Horizon Level!

A quick way to ruin a landscape photo is having a crooked horizon. The horizon isn’t crooked in real life, so it shouldn’t be crooked in your landscape shot.

If you cant get the image level at the time of shooting it, fix it after by rotating your image using the crop tool in most photo editing apps.

Gentle lapping waves from the ocean meet the beach at sunset.

Reflections

Reflections can help create a symmetrical composition in an image. These types of images can be taken near ponds, lakes, and even the ocean if it’s calm enough. The best time to take these types of photographs is when the wind is calm. Keep your horizon of the body of water straight in your frame. You may need to move your camera higher or lower depending on how you want your subject reflected in the water.

Mist rises off a glass-like lake at sunrise. Evergreen trees on a small bit of land are reflected nearly perfectly in the water.

Natural Framing

Find elements in your scene that can create a natural frame in your image. Trees, rocks, and flowers can all be used to frame your image. The frame element can be on top, bottom, or on the sides of the image. It doesn’t necessarily have to be confined to around the outside of the image or on more than one side of the image.

Mist rises off a glass-like lake at sunrise. The landscape scene is framed by a tree on each side in the foreground, with a hill on the side of the lake.

Sharing Your Landscape Images

So you followed these tips and have captured yourself some really great shots. Now what? You should share them! Share them on social media, email them to family, or print them.

Now that you’ve printed them, share those prints. Send Granny one of those awesome photos you took. Is it Uncle Stu’s birthday? Send him one of your images in a photo card with a personalized message. Or if you want to make some money from your photos, learn how to sell your nature photography.

Get out there, create something beautiful.

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September is Save Your Photos Month!

Published September 6, 2018

Your photos are precious memories that you can re-live forever…unless they disappear.

Every two minutes, humans take more photos than ever existed in total 150 years ago. A lost or damaged phone, a computer crash, or even a natural disaster could destroy your digital photos or prints. Don’t risk losing those captured memories. Back up and save your photos today! In honor of September being National Save Your Photos Month, we’re here with some tips to keep your favorite images safe.

Tips to Backup Your Digital Photos

Back up your digital photos on a regular basis to a jump drive. Once the images are off your phone or camera, store them on your home computer or laptop, as well as a dedicated portable external hard drive. You can even use cloud storage to save your photos (more on that in a moment). Ideally, it’s a good strategy to have at least 3 digital copies of your most important photos saved on different devices.
Display and share your favorites! Don’t cage your memories to a digital file or a shoebox… print them out and put them in a frame! Our mat board frames are an affordable option to show off your favorite prints at work or at home.
Organize and tag those images. Include dates, names, ages and locations on your prints and pictures. Ask your family members about old photos now before the information is lost, and jot down notes on a notecard to place behind the photo.
Scan prints and old family photos. Paper and ink are not forever, so be sure to get some nice quality digital scans of your vintage prints and old family photos, and back them up!

Tools to Organize and Store Digital Photos

If you’ve got your photos backed up, but are struggling with how to find and organize them, these tools can help.

Adobe Photoshop Elements

This program is easy and fast to use. Definitely worth the investment to ensure you can find those precious memories in the future.

Google Cloud Storage

Google Drive or Google Photos both offer free, secure cloud storage for your digital photos. If you max out the initial 15 GB of free storage that comes with your Google account, you can upgrade your storage plan for a monthly or annual fee.

For more tips on organizing your digital photos, visit here.

Fun Ways to Make Your Photos Go Further:

Make 4″ x 6″ photo greeting cards for holidays, birthdays, or thank you cards
Make an album or scrapbook from your recent trip
Use photo booth prints as giveaways and party favors at events
Make a custom calendar with your photos
Order a photo mug, photo coasters, art print, or personalized photo ornaments for holiday gifts

It’s easy to let our images sit on our phones or our computers without backing them up, or printing our favorites. But we’re taking more pictures than ever—an estimated 657 billion photos per year, according to Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report. Back up your photos today to ensure you can share your favorite photo memories for years to come.

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