5 New Ideas For A Christmas Photo Book
A lot of stuff was going on in December last year. Lionel Messi was winning the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Biden and Macron were holding a state dinner – Biden had the snails – and here at MySocialBook, we were talking about what you should include in your Christmas photo book.
Our blog obviously generated the biggest buzz that month – and for good reason. We made stellar suggestions. What you should capture on Christmas day, why you should capture it, and how you can put it all together into a beautiful Instagram or Facebook photo book. But what we didn’t talk about was the theme that you should choose.
Well, why would we? It’s Christmas, right? But believe it or not, there are several ways you can photograph the season of Christmas, each of which will result in a vastly different photo book.
To help you understand more, we’ve listed out five of the most common Christmas photography themes, as well as a few tips on how you can nail them.
Fairytale Of Your Home
One Christmas photo book theme we come across a lot is the “glitzy photo book”. You know those Christmas commercials that show roaring fires, shining baubles, warm chandeliers, and table spreads fit for kings? That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about – creating a Christmas photo book that uses the Christmas aesthetic to radiate luxury.
There are no party poppers or novelty sweaters in sight. It’s all pristine, ‘proper’, and luxurious. And it’s perfectly doable, too, so long as you get your lighting right – and snap all the photos before the family arrives!
Have Yourself A Very Messy Christmas
The opposite of this photo book is showing Christmas with no holds barred. This includes the stress-filled Christmas dinner, the explosion that takes place in your lounge after the kids have opened their presents, the laughter, the smiles, the leftover sandwiches – even your tipsy uncle dancing to Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree!
No matter how messy it is, you should be making sure to get it in there. This is definitely a different vibe to the more calm and luxurious photo book we just talked about, but it’s also a lot more honest!
Do They Need To Know It’s Christmas?
This might be a slightly “out there” suggestion, but just because you’re making a photo book during Christmas doesn’t mean it has to take on a Christmas theme. A lot of people just like the aesthetic of the season – the warmth, the colors, the chee –, even though they don’t celebrate the holiday of Christmas in the first place.
There are a lot of easy ways to shoot beautiful winter photography without any inclusion of Christmassy stuff. All you need to do is put on your woolly hat, get out there, and capture anything you think is good enough to make the cut!
Blue (And Green, And Red, And Silver) Christmas
If you’re struggling to pick a theme for your Christmas photo book, then we’d always suggest reverting to colors. Ordinarily, if you’re uploading photos to a photo book maker, you would choose a collection that has a coherent color palette -- for instance, bright colors for summer, orange, brown, or golden colors for fall, and so on.
A great way to make a Christmassy photo book, in this case, is to focus on colors like red, green, and silver and make sure they become a common staple throughout your collection. This will make the book not only feel Christmassy, but methodical and consistent too – both of which are very important words in the photographer’s dictionary.
All I Want In A Christmas Photo Book
Lastly, we’d ask you to remember that this is Christmas, and the best Christmases have no rules. You don’t need to make a thematic photo book if you don’t want to. You can mix all of these ideas together into one big jumble of photographs, some of which are glitzy, some of which are messy, some aren’t massively Christmas-related, and others are a hodgepodge of all things Christmassy.
In this instance, you need to think of why you are creating the photo book. Is it to show off to guests when they come over? Is it a Christmas gift for family members? Is it a test of your skills as a photographer or simply a book for you to keep on your bookshelf and look at every now and then? If you make that decision first, then you’ll know what kind of book you’ll want to make. Just make sure you have a ball making it!
