Christmas treel lights at nightA few days ago I got a magazine in the mail and on the back was a picture that most likely was a stock photo.  It was a lone Christmas tree in a field with lights on it, covered in snow.  It got me thinking about how easy of a photo that could be to take, and how easy it would be to mess up a photo like that.  Believe me, I know how frustrating it can be to think I just nailed a shoot, then find out later I did something wrong and need to redo the whole shoot.  So I thought I would do a post about some tips and ideas for getting this right.

The first thing I recommend, dress warm.  The colder and more miserable you are the more likely you are to make a mistake or cut corners.  Also when you start photographing christmas trees or lights you might find other things to photograph, and it would be a shame to have to cut a photo trip short because you are cold.

The next thing is, you need to use a tripod.  Stock photos cannot have noise, and usually a smaller aperture like f8 is necessary.  So since you will be photographing in low light, with a small aperture, and low ISO the shutter speed is going to be low.  So like we discussed in the post about how to pick a tripod in order to have sharp pictures a tripod is necessary.

Once you get there look at your scene, and decide what is going to be the best angle, background, and if there is going to be anything that will interfere with you taking the photo you want.  Random lights are great at ending up in night pictures, and can be dealt with through Photoshop or by possibly slightly changing your angle or location.  If you are going to fix it later in Photoshop, make a note of where the light is and what photos to remind you later.  This is where carrying a notepad with you is very helpful, you can track things like exposure settings, location, and notes without trying to remember everything.

For the most dramatic scenes, you will want to under expose everything but the lights, and expose only for the lights.  Your camera will try to expose for the background so this is just another example of why shooting in manual mode can be the best choice.  A properly done photo will look great and should earn you some money during the holidays.

One last point is that if you are taking pictures of buildings or homes, a property release (similar to a model release except for property) will probably be necessary to sell the images.

 

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