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On a pre-Thanksgiving dinner beach walk on Thursday, I passed a man wearing a Santa hat standing in front of a chair full of Christmas-themed props. Mistakenly thinking that he and the woman he was with were trying to take their own picture, I offered, as I will sometimes do when I see people in this situation, to take one of them.
"I'm the PHOTOGRAPHER," he snapped, and I kept on walking after a brief apology.
Then I went inside and told Twitter about it, as you do. I even used the hashtag #holidaybeachphotos gone wrong, yes I did.
Now, when I say "props," I mean he had a miniature Christmas tree, red and green baseball caps, a Santa Claus-shaped I don't know what, a white plastic patio chair and a surfboard. He was lugging all of this stuff around with an intensity that led me to believe that he intended to use every last one of these things before his shoot was over. I don't know how the people were dressed. I only saw one of his subjects wander down, and it appeared to be a patriarch of sorts.
In a bright yellow shirt.
Now part of me wants to let these people be, to shut my mouth and my fingers and note that there are many approaches to capturing photos for holiday cards and gifts, and some of them involve props in primary colors - even in a spot of natural beauty. The other part of me wants those people to put down all the knick-knacks and the standard fa-la-la color scheme and just...take pictures.
This is the part that is winning out at the moment, with the undertstanding that this is only my opinion, and if the people want the red and green baseball hats, the people shall have them with no complaint from me. It just got me thinking, that's all.
Now it is true that I did not grow up in a posed holiday card photo environment. No one in our family posed for portraits in color-coordinated clothing or traveled to a beach or a woodsy setting to get our pictures taken for Christmas. We had Olan Mills a couple of times a year for the kids and a rare family shot, and that was that. Beyond that, there were a ton of pictures taken at actual Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, and those were carefully shared among our extended family and filed away in albums.
Times have changed. Several of the cards I receive from families with kids (and a few dogs. Go dog families) include photos, some of just the little ones and others with the whole fam damily. I don't get too many with people in coordinated clothing, but I know they're popular. Many of the kids are dressed in holiday-themed gear, especially if it's just them in the shot.
I guess I feel like if this is the photo you're choosing to represent you to all of the friends and family on your holiday card list, it ought to be a good one. This, to me, means that it represents who you are and what you're like together, while not completely submerging the personalities and appearances of all the people in the picture. Tall order, perhaps, but herewith are a few hints from a mental review of the ghosts of holiday photos past:
1. Natural shots in natural environments should be, well, natural. I clearly have my own issues with bringing complicated props on the beach (or anywhere, for that matter) but that is only because most times a beautiful environment speaks for itself. Remember too that a holiday card is generally pretty heavy on strong colors and graphics, so don't make the picture and the card compete.
2. Poses, as well, should really be relaxed and normal for your family. Kids should not be forced to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in portrait lockstep, but nor should they necessarily be hanging upside down off of a jungle gym if that is not their way. A good photographer should know how to encourage interaction and move you around comfortably, and if they can't, they're not earning their fee.
3. Proceed in matching clothing with caution. I am not going to get too far into this because this is another aspect of family portraiture that is steeped in tradition and personal choice, but I will say one thing: you are a family, not a sports team. (I mean, you may be a sports team, I don't know, but I'm guessing the majority of the universal you are not.) I
