Farnham family photography – celebrating the humble Christmas card

{ Farnham family photography – celebrating the humble Christmas card

…..and why I like sending them! }

Day one – 12 days of images

Welcome to the first of my 12 days of Christmas blog posts!  Have you written your Christmas cards yet?  Do you even send them?

In a few days time, as part of my 12 images of Christmas I will be posting a blog to showcase my 2016 client Christmas card and the photo shoot for the cards.  However, today I am looking back at last years client Christmas cards and the lovely children’s photography session that I organised in order to produce these cards.

And speaking of Christmas cards, I thought I would also use today’s blog post to share some insights into our very own family Christmas ‘card’ too.  Read on to find out how to choose an ideal family photograph for your Christmas card and what types of cards make for a fun, festive and informative snap shot of your families year in review at Christmas time!

My 2015 client Christmas card

Every year I plan a special Christmas photo shoot so I can produce warm and festive Christmas cards for my Farnham, Surrey and North London family and newborn photography clients.   It really is a chance for me to celebrate the achievements of the year – in terms of my skills as a photographer and then it is also a chance to let my hair down a bit and produce something a little ‘outside the box’ from my all important family and baby sessions, which are the core of my family photography business.

I really am one of those people that love both giving and receiving Christmas cards.  Christmas time can get so busy but I really relish a couple of very long evenings at the dining table, all set up as a card writing hub.  Various cards are laid out, both for clients, our family and our friends. More recently too we have the children’s school Christmas cards to do and my 6 year old son relishes in sitting down next to me practicing his new found skill of ‘joined up’ writing!

There is usually a big glass of wine on the go and a box of chocolates that ‘weren’t meant to be opened until Christmas day’ and any other sneaky treats I can find.  Once I get going there is no stopping me ….. until they are all done of course.  Next I enjoy the cards that arrive through our door too.  They are hung all around our kitchen and then some more in the living room, dressing our house in the festive colours of Christmas!

Call me a little old fashioned but apparently I am not alone.  I was having a little scout around on the web last night to learn a little more about the history of the Christmas card tradition here in the UK and apparently in the UK alone, approximately 678.9 million cards were sent in 2010 and this figure is on the rise rather than falling, according to the Royal Mails own research in to the Christmas card tradition.

In the 1700’s British children would write messages to their family and loved ones on bordered paper, whilst an official Christmas card tradition was initiated by Queen Victoria during her reign.  Sir Henry Cole was commissioned to produce the first Christmas card in 1870 and by the time he introduced the Royal Mails ‘One Penny Post’ system, it offered everyone an affordable way to post Christmas cards to their friends and family.

Royal mail research has also discovered that sending a real Christmas card still outweighs sending an e-card and I couldn’t agree more.   Aside from my session time and the occasional hand delivered parcel of photography to Farnham (and wider Surrey) families, I spend more of my year ‘speaking’ to you/my clients via email, on Facebook and now Twitter and Instagram soon too.

I send newsletters and write blogs and occasionally I am texting instead of speaking on the phone.  So once a year I want to have a different kind of connection with my clients and that’s were the Christmas card makes for a valuable way for me to share some personal words to each client, that cannot be replicated to every single family. Words that are personal to each individual family and a part of their story rather than a shared story.

If I only posted my Christmas greeting on Facebook or in an email or e-card  it was seem less personal and  bit ‘everyday’ whilst sending a real Christmas card has a more traditional, genuine and heartfelt feel to it.  It really is a little tricky to display an e-card above the fire place too!

Hope, aged 3 years old, was the model for my 2015 card and you can see the full blog post from her session here: https://sarahangelphotography.co.uk/index.php/childrens-photographer-london-2/

Our 2016 family Christmas card

I thought it might also be nice to share our personal family Christmas card in the hope that it might inspire you to use it as an opportunity to print more of  your own family images this Christmas or indeed next year!   A Christmas card would not be a Christmas card without some kind of picture!

Sending out an annual family Christmas card is the perfect opportunity to update your close and distant friends and family on the little and big things that have made your year special.  Whilst we see some of our friends and family everyday so it is often enough just to write a short message or a simple ‘Merry Christmas’ , however these days we have friends and family scattered across the globe too. For this reason it feels really important to us to send a card full of best wishes and a little up date on how our year has gone. This year we moved from North London to Farnham so before departing our home in Pinner it seemed like a good time to hire our own family photographer (yes photographers need to be in their family photographs too!) so this year in particular we had a wider choice of photographs with all of us in them! (this is very important Mum and Dad!).

Our children joined a new school here in Farnham and produced beautiful Christmas art work at school which were turned into charity Christmas cards, so of course we had to buy these as they were just adorable.  So instead of my usual family Christmas card with portrait on front of card we produced a family letter, with pictures of course, that tucks  inside the children’s cards.

I have attached a link to the design I used at the bottom of this blog post and if you head over to this Pinterest board you can see some of our other favourite design ideas.

I am going to quickly list a few of my all time best tips for a beautiful family Christmas Card or Christmas letter here:

• When choosing a photograph try to forget about perfection.  Make sure to have fun and to not take it so seriously.  If someone is making a funny face or has a chocolate smear on his smile treat it as part of the real joy of family life!
• If you are taking the photograph yourself keep the background simple so that your family remain the focus.  Sky, grass, tree’s or the wall of your house are all very good background options and generally less distracting.
• Avoid indoor flash as you will end up with heavy shadows. Go outside, aiming for a naturally lit image as this will be a more flattering light for everyone.
• Alternatively, using a professional photographer who sells digital files means that you will have a good quality image and a digital file is then easily uploaded to your chosen card store for printing.
• Your photography doesn’t have to be ‘Christmasy’ what’s more important is that you can link up the colours in the image with the colours in your card design.
• Bringing me to my next point.  Choose your card template design to fit the colours in your photograph rather than trying desperately to find an ok photograph to fit a favourite design as you could end up compromising on your choice of photograph.
• If you cannot find a design that matches the overal colours in your photograph then look for another design or go for a simple photo card with just text inside. Decorative graphics mismatched with your outfits in the photograph will make you card look a mess.
• If you are confident in using Photoshop or similar photographic design software (and you have the time) then I recommend you download a design template.
• You can find free downloadable designs on my Pinterest board here.  Or simply search for ‘free Christmas Card template’ or ‘Christmas Letter template’.
• Alternatively there are many reasonable quality online high street photography stores where you can upload the images and the final product is put together and printed for you. ‘Minted’ in the US is our current family favourite.
• If you are writing a ‘Year in Review’ style letter, as we did this year.  Make it a dinner table topic and jot down everyones memories, thoughts and funny quotes from the year as a brainstorm.  Use some headings as inspiration, such as, top family moments, lows, favourite activities, family statistics, favourite little moments, etc. Once you have lots of ideas listed you can begin to pick out the most significant and the most interesting and group the ideas under different headings in your letter.

I hope these tips have inspired you to produce a Christmas letter or card from your family!