Top 8 Holiday iPhone Photo Tips to Capture, Organize, and Share Those Holiday Moments!

Every moment matters. The end of year holidays and festivities offer plenty of colorful moments to capture: co-workers in ugly sweaters, the family trip to the tree farm, colorful decorations, family dinners, or a night out on the town for New Year’s Eve. With a little attention to detail and planning, your photos and videos can capture the merriment and joy of the holidays. Here are some top tips from Mary Ellen Heinen is the CEO of Pepper Networks (creators of Timebox, available now in the App Store) to enhance your photos and videos and make them easy to share in this holiday season.

1. Take a lot of photos.
To overcome the pressure and stress of capturing a great group photo, just work quickly and snap away or use burst mode. Take a large number of photos since there is always someone blinking, turned away, facing another member of the group. Having a large number of photos will provide the best opportunity to obtain numerous options of everyone looking their best.

2. Don’t delete.
Just as important as taking lots of photos, is keeping them all. Yes, all of them. During the holidays you may be in a rush to find that prized photo of the season, but some of our favorites are of friends caught unaware or of a scene just happening rather than a, posed opportunity. This year with the iPhone 6s’ Live Photos, the before and after of the family picture become a fun part of the story as well!

3. Find the snowflake in the blizzard.
Place emphasis on the details this year. The photo will be more impressive if you fill the frame with the most striking parts, colors, or visuals of the venue. Look for the gorgeous star or ornament adorning a Christmas tree rather than including the whole tree in the shot. If a home’s lights look fabulous, capture the detail of the lights lining one window or the rather than losing the effect by photographing the lights of the entire house.


4. Put on your creative hat.
Try to focus on how you are placing and organizing the various elements and people in each photo and video to add creative composition and keep your photos fun and interesting. Try placing your main subject to one side of the frame and balance them with something in the background on the other side of the picture. For example, if you are photographing a beautiful collection of lit candles, try placing them on the right of the scene with the dining table blurred softly in the background on the left. This will result in a photo that both records the candles in all their beauty and does so in an artistic, creative way.

5. Zoom with your feet.
Simply moving your iPhone’s camera in close will make the biggest difference in the success of your picture-taking this holiday season. Make the people and objects critical to your moments huge and impossible to miss by filling the frame. If you are photographing the family feast, but don't have candles or lights (or equivalent supporting elements) in the background, you might want to instead move in (with your feet, not just the zoom function) as close as you can. Filling the entire frame with your subjects will result in a photo that has true impact on viewers.


6. Take candid photos.
Let’s face it; candids make some of the most fun and interesting photos and videos. You aren’t just capturing them; you are creating a memory of it. Make your way around your year-end festivities and snap merrymakers that are too engaged in presents, feasts or activities to notice you and your iPhone. With candid photos and videos, instead of taking time to carefully compose the frame and scene, just get several takes in rapid succession and move on to the next partier.

7. Be prepared.
During this time of year we often only have a brief moment when that magical moment emerges. That’s why we must be fully prepared to capture that moment when it happens by having your iPhone at the ready, and shooting quickly and often without being timid or bashful. Also make sure you’ve charged your battery and have sufficient memory available so you can keep capturing special moments without worry.

8. Share!
Share your moments with family and friends instantly through your social media pages like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram so they feel like part of the action. Apps like Timebox can make sharing simple and easy with a few taps on your phone. For those treasured moments captured in images, think about creating a framed photo or photo book for family and friends (particularly parents and grandparents) as a lovely holiday gift.



We all take photos for a reason – to share and remember good times. Let your photo management app ensure you instantly organize all of your photos and that they are easy to share. Timebox allows you to create a short video to replay and share a special day during the holidays. Add and customize your own tags to any photo or group of photos, making it easy to find, enjoy and share photo and videos. Quickly search by location, event, time and so much more. Retrieve any photo you’ve ever taken, synced across your iOS 9 iPhones and iPads. Until next time...