Nick’s Photography Tips: Make Cards While the Snow Flies
posted Friday, November 28, 2014 at 5:32 PM EDT
This tip is pretty simple. Shoot your Christmas card while it’s snowing.
It seems obvious, I know, but trust me, it’s easy to watch the snow come and go and not hop to when you need to. Those truly gorgeous snow falling moments really don’t last all that long. I’m just giving you the heads up here, so that if it snows at your house any time soon it just may be on your radar, and you can knock off your Christmas card photo. Real falling snow looks great on cards.
Keep in mind that the snowflakes are going to show up better in front of dark things, so what people wear is actually fairly important. If you’re lucky enough to get those big fat juicy flakes that float down, you’re in business. But remember that they are still falling and if you want to freeze them -- no pun intended -- you should being using a shutter speed of at least 1/125th of a second. 1/250th would be even better.
I took separate shots of the boys for the card you see here. I even photographed my hand-printed message and edited it all into one picture in Photoshop.
Just a little background on this message. The people who received this picture were aware that little Teddy had spent the first three months of his life in the hospital. (He was three months premature.)
I’ve got some other ideas for card photos coming up, but I wanted to get this one out there sooner rather than later. It must be snowing someplace today, right?
(Teddy is now as healthy as a horse. Alexander calls him Tedzilla.)
And yes, sometimes we think life is tough and then we look around and life isn’t so tough anymore.
Period.
(An exceptional educator and a world-class photographer, Nick Kelsh is the founder of How To Photograph Your Life, an excellent source of affordable photography training and tips. Nick's courses can be conducted by yourself in your own time, or with feedback from Nick and your fellow students. If you appreciated this article and want to improve your photography, visit How to Photograph your Life and sign up for a course today!)