Taken Your Christmas Card Photo Yet?

[Chuck Gardner]

Have you done your Christmas card photo yet? Here are a few tips:

1) Shoot it outdoors on an overcast day: The light is better - very diffuse. The sun is behind the clouds to the south, so face that direction so there is nice even light on the faces. Keep the flash on to prevent dark eye sockets.

2) Don't wear distracting clothing: Faces are much smaller that the body and if the clothing contrast more with the background than the faces it will attract more attention and distract from the faces. The ideal situation is a dark background with dark clothing. That will allow the clothing and background to blend together and the faces really contrast. If you must use red clothing then use a red background also. That way the red clothing and background will blend together and frame the contrasting face. The key to seeing the faces well is to make sure they contrast the most. Same principle as camouflage for hunting except the face is the orange hat.

3) Keep the heads together and in the upper 1/3 of the photo: In a tiny photo gaps between heads are magnified. When they get too wide a group photo begins to look like a bunch of individual portraits in the same frame instead of a couple or family. Closeness and even up/down spacing of the heads set the mood for a group shot as the viewer scans from face to face. If you have a small wife put her on a box or some phone books to get her eyes up at least to your mouth level. If you have young kids use a seated pose to keep the heads closer vertically. If standing the youngest kid always winds up falling out the bottom of the photo - like they aren't part of the family or don't want to be. Put the parents in the middle to anchor the family, or on either end to frame it - both are visual metaphors for a family structure - then add the kids. For multi-generational photos pose the oldest generation as the anchors that way, then add the children / grandkids in logical family groups (as you would if just shooting each family) so a stranger can look at it and figure out who is related to who.

4) Keep the camera above the eyes of the tallest person: When the camera lens drops below the eye line the nostrils appear like the beady little eyes of a rodent. They distract from the actual eyes and mouth which is what convey mood and emotion. The nose in the middle is best hidden in plain sight. Just watch out for and avoid a distracting nose shadow (turn the face towards the light and the shadow will disappear) and if you see the nostrils get the camera higher. When shooting portraits I usually stand on a stool. When shooting standing groups I shoot from a ladder to get above the group.

5) Don't get too close: Perspective - how big the nose looks relative to the ears - is a function of camera/subject distance. The further you get away the better people look - that's more true for some more than others So don't use the camera at the widest setting from 6 feet, shoot from 8ft or further for couples and about 12-15ft for groups, when zoom to frame the shot in the camera.

That said, here's ours for this year:

And how I took it - ladder was about 15 feet away from us:

I took a 1x6 board, put a one-inch long 1/4"-20 pitch bolt though it, then attached the ball head from my tripod (they unscrew from the shaft) I then A clamped it to the top of the ladder. I needed the height because we were standing on the porch a couple feet above ground level. The white thing is a reflection-diffuser for the flash, which is on a bracket to raise it above the lens. I added a bit of flash to put light in the eye sockets and a sparkle of catch lights in the eyes. Here's a close-up of the camera attachment:

And one I took of my wife Belinda:

The real key to making those photos work wasn't the lighting, but rather the fact the clothing and background are darker than the faces, allowing them to contrast. A fancy camera isn't needed, either is a tripod. Just get a ladder and a bag of rice or beans to keep the camera steady.

Merry Christmas to all...

Chuck Gardner

[Rolan Duffield]

Great report Chuck.

Thanks for posting it. Many good ideas for you photo bugs.

Rolan