Christmas Pictures: How to Take Your own Family Holiday Portrait Video Lecture | Capture like a Pro: Digital Photography Tutorial - Professional Skills

hi I'm Chelsea and today I'm going to
show you how to replicate pictures I
recently took for a holiday shoot I held
for my clients first let's look over the
materials you'll need the first thing
you'll need to consider is your backdrop
first you'll need to get some shears
these are just sheer curtains that I
picked up online I have about 20 feet of
shear here it's for curtains but the
amount that you'll need depends on the
size of the show photoshoot you'll be
doing I had to do a big group shot and
so I needed a bigger backdrop and
therefore more sheers if you have just a
few children on the floor that you're
taking pictures of you can scale down
the size of your backdrop and just use
probably one or two shears the next
layer of my backdrop are these white
Christmas lights with white wire if you
get a dark wire it may show through
you're here and that wouldn't look very
nice so make sure you get this and the
last layer is the solid white backdrop
we have a vinyl backdrop but if you're
taking your pictures against the wall
you could easily do it against a white
wall or even put white paper on your
wall
as long as it's solid and you don't see
any color through your sheers the next
thing you'll want to think about is your
lighting now I'm fortunate enough to
have these nice studio lights
I used a strobe with a shoot through
umbrella a beauty dish with a sock and a
large softbox if you don't have these
fancy lights in your studio you can just
use an off-camera flash and bounce it
the biggest challenge you're going to
have with this shoot is balancing your
light too much light flooding onto your
backdrop is going to completely blow out
your Christmas lights and ruin the
effect of the shoot I relied on modeling
lights instead of my usual flash and I
put the fusers on all of them to make a
really soft ambient light if you're
using a flash in the shoot you're going
to find that too much flash is going to
be really harsh so if you're using any
flash make sure that it's very little
for more information on lighting check
out chapter 6 of our book stunning
digital photography for more information
on how to use the bounce flash check out
chapter 4 if you're going to be showing
the floor in your photos you'll want to
cover that with something white as well
this white floor is just a continuation
of my vinyl backdrop but I also put down
this nice lamp for a rug for the kids
pictures that I took
if the Lamb Fair is a bit decadent for
you you can always go to
fabric store and pick up some of this
faux fur by the yard it was only a few
dollars for this and you get a similar
look and feel another issue you may run
into while taking these pictures is
being able to adequately blur your
background so to get a nice background
blur you'll want to move your subject
about six or seven feet away from the
background and then move yourself
another 10 to 15 feet away from your
subject and zoom in on them that should
be enough to get your subject in focus
and nicely blur that background and make
the lights look twinkly and ethereal I
hope my video helps you take some great
pictures of your friends and family if
you're having some general problems with
portraits of the lighting check out
chapters 4 & 6 of our book stunning
digital photography if you like this
video and would like to see more click
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don't forget to comment if you have any
questions so I can get back to you
thanks bye I hope you liked that video I
hope this video helps you take some
really great pictures of your friends
and family that seemed insincere right
stupid friends care about your friends
check out chapters 4 & 6 of our book
cheapskate