01 Ruffle a few feathers © Mark Hamblin

01 Ruffle a few feathers – shoot garden birds. In a good way

Winter is the ideal time to photograph garden birds because it’s the one time of year you can be sure they’ll flock to a feeder. All you need is a long lens (300mm+), somewhere to conceal your presence (such as a garden shed) and plenty of patience. “Preparation is key when shooting an image like this,” says wildlife photographer Mark Hamblin. “I set the branch up in my back garden near a well-established feeder, and made sure the background looked nice and light from my hide. I also chose a large branch with plenty of snow on it to make it look the part, and I waited until the snow was coming down thick and fast before venturing outside.”

“When food is scarce squabbles like this are fairly frequent, but they only last a split second so you have to get set up before the action unfolds. In this case I was already shooting the greenfinch on continuous mode, so when the female chaffinch arrived all I had to do was recompose and press the shutter release.”

Get started today…

* Expose for the background first, and pre-focus on the perch so that when you come to re-focus on an alighting bird, your lens won’t waste precious seconds hunting for a focus point.

* Ensure the background is clean and clutter-free, and set your lens’s widest aperture to blur the background.

* If you want to capture a hint of motion blur in the wing tips of a bird, set your camera’s shutter speed at around 1/500 to 1/800 sec.

* Overcast conditions are best when it comes to garden birds, as flat, even light renders feather detail much better than direct sunlight.

02 Get great group shots – photograph your friends and family with confidence

Christmas is the ideal time to photograph loved ones, but getting natural-looking group shots can be a real challenge. Our very own portrait pro Ben Brain, who’s shot more group photos than he cares to remember, has this advice: “People are used to the speed of compacts, and inevitably expect you to be just as quick with your SLR, so work out your settings – ISO, aperture, shutter speed and white balance – beforehand.” “It’s also a good idea to use a tripod: once you’ve framed your shot, you can look up, engage with the group to get them smiling, and then take the picture without having to peer through the viewfinder.”

Get started today…

* Expose for ambient light to capture Christmas lights and log fires, but use flash to bring out detail in faces.

* Tilt or swivel your flash unit to bounce it off walls or ceilings, but keep an eye out for coloured ceilings, which can create an unwanted colour cast.

* Take multiple shots to be sure of a keeper – in groups of three or more, you can almost guarantee at least one person will be blinking or looking away in many of the photos.

* Don’t wait for the perfect pose. People who are larking about while they’re getting ready to pose often look more natural.

03  Splash out with a flashgun – have fun with liquids

Whatever your tipple, the festive season is an ideal time to try your hand at photographing liquids. You might think that capturing a drink being poured is strictly for those with a sizeable studio and a patient cleaner, but all you really need is a tripod, a flashgun, and a helper to pour the drinks. One man who‘s made more of a splash than most in the advertising world is liquid specialist Jonathan Knowles, who’s shot ads for everyone from Schweppes to Smirnoff. “A flash is essential,” he explains. “I typically use a shutter speed of 1/800 sec, but even this isn’t fast enough to freeze the splash completely. The duration of the flash from a standard flashgun, however, can be as fast as 1/40,000 sec at low power, which is fast enough to freeze the motion of a speeding bullet, let alone a splash.”

Get started today…

* Position your flash behind the glass, and place a sheet of white Perspex – or a few sheets of tracing paper – between them to produce a clean white background.

* Measure out a small quantity of liquid, use a plastic jug with a fine spout for pouring, and place a container below the glass to catch inevitable spillages.

* Tilt the glass to make it easier to pour into, then straighten it in Photoshop.

* Use the actual product rather than dyed water, as alcoholic drinks react and flow differently to water.

04 Get creative with Christmas decorations – look at reflective baubles in a whole new light

Christmas lights and decorations are often photographed quite literally, which is fine if the lights themselves are very dramatic, but less interesting if they’re just wrapped around a tree. By thinking more creatively, it’s possible to come up with something more striking. Motion and zoom blur can be used to create vibrant light trails, for example, while shooting lights so that they are as out of focus as possible produces bright, circular discs that can make great abstracts. Reflective baubles are also ideal for shooting clichéd subjects in an original way.

Get started today…

* When shooting lights at night don’t rely on your camera’s suggested exposure settings – you may need to under-expose slightly to avoid burnt-out highlights.

* If you’re photographing lights, set a shutter speed of a second or more and experiment by panning or zooming in and out.

* Turn off autofocus, focus your lens as close as possible, and then crop in on lights that are close together to produce abstract patterns of brightly coloured, overlapping discs.

* Look out for reflective surfaces, but try to avoid including yourself in the reflection.

05 Pick out winter berries © Mark Hamblin

05 Pick out winter berries – isolate the colour and texture of frost-encrusted fruit

There’s something distinctly appealing about bright red berries covered in frost. Perhaps it’s because white and red work so well together, or perhaps it’s the contrast in texture between the smooth, glossy skin of the fruit and the crisp edges of the frost. Whatever the reason, winter berries make a great subject for macro photography. And wherever you live, you won’t have to travel far to find some. You’ll find rose hips like these in almost any public park in the UK. As with garden birds, one of the most important considerations when you’re photographing frosted berries is the quality of the light – in direct sunlight, it’s almost impossible to avoid blowing out bright white highlights without making the rest of the image look under-exposed. If it’s cloudy or the subject is in shade, however, it’s much easier to bring out every detail in the shadows, mid-tones and highlights. A clean, clutter-free background is also important, and with berries, light backgrounds tend to work better than dark ones, as the image above illustrates.

Get started today…

* A macro lens is recommended for shooting individual berries – standard lenses just won’t enable you to get close enough.

* To focus, set your camera on a tripod, switch your lens to manual and move the focusing ring back and forth until the part of the subject you want in focus is pin-sharp – in most cases, this will be the ice crystals nearest the camera.

* Don’t simply set the widest aperture to blur the background; a smaller aperture will allow you to get more of the berry in focus.

* If necessary, use a piece of white card to bounce light back into the shadows, or to provide a clean background.

06 Take a mug shot – create presents with a personal touch

Showing off your photos doesn’t have to be limited to prints and slide shows. There are many online companies that can print your favourite shots on almost anything you care to imagine, from jigsaws to wallpaper. Some options might not be to everyone’s taste (photo teddy bear, anyone?) but what’s overly sentimental to some might make the perfect present for others. If this all sounds just a little to cheesy for your palette, take look at the photo books offered by companies such as Blurb.com.

Get started today…

* For all manner of photo gifts try www.photobox.com or www.nelliestore.co.uk.

* If you’re thinking about canvas prints, mounted prints or posters, bear in mind the colour scheme – and the use – of the room it’s destined for.

* If you’re going big, check the size of your original image, and if necessary enlarge it in Photoshop or a dedicated interpolation package such as Genuine Fractals, which may provide better results.

07 Don’t miss a single moment – get great pics of kids opening their Christmas presents

Anyone who’s ever tried to photograph children opening presents on Christmas morning will know how difficult it can be to capture that magical moment between the wrapping being ripped off and the present being tossed aside to make way for the next! As our technique editor and father of two Paul Grogan explains, the key is to set your SLR to continuous and to follow the action. “Once kids get used to the camera they soon forget it’s there. By watching things unfold through your viewfinder, and firing off short bursts, you’re more likely to get a winning shot.”

Get started today…

* Don’t be afraid to increase the ISO – flash can kill the atmosphere, and often results in overly-bright images.

* Anticipate the moment, and shoot loads of images. Getting it right takes bags of patience – and a large memory card!

*Use continuous mode to capture every expression.

08 Shooting stars – make the sky spin, not your head

Photographing star trails might seem daunting, but it’s easier than you might think, as night owl and landscape pro Steve Sharp explains: “Even at ISO100, noise becomes very noticeable in long exposures, so you need to keep exposure times to less than ten minutes. The problem is that stars don’t move very far in ten minutes, so the answer is to take a sequence of short exposures, and then blend them together in Photoshop.”

Get started today…

* In the northern hemisphere, all stars revolve around the North Star. To locate the North Star, find the Big Dipper and then draw an imaginary line between the two outer edges of the constellation – this line will point towards the North Star.

* To combine multiple star-trail photographs, create a layer stack of all the images in Photoshop and then change the blending mode of every layer apart from the base layer to Lighten.

* Use a fairly wide aperture of f/5.6 to ensure the trails are bright and distinct in each image.

09 Photograph a Christmas market © Franz Marc Frei

09 Photograph a Christmas market – capture the colour and atmosphere of your nearest festive fayre

There are few better places to capture the spirit and colour of the festive season than a bustling Christmas market. Stalls piled high with seasonal gifts and produce all make great subjects, as do bright-eyed children gazing at toys and treats. Shooting Christmas markets brings its own unique set of challenges, not least shooting in low light, but resist the urge to use your flash on auto, as it will invariably make your shots look over-lit and slightly cool. Instead, increase your ISO and keep your shutter speed down to preserve the warm glow of the ambient light given off by candles and streetlamps. This may result in images that aren’t quite as sharp as they could be, but this can actually add to atmosphere, especially if you use motion blur.

Get started today…

* Include something that adds a sense of time and place, such as a Christmas tree or Christmas lights.

* If you must use flash, expose for the ambient light to ensure the background isn’t completely dark, and then use fill-flash to light up your subject.

* For wide shots, get up high for an overview of the whole market.

* Keep an eye out for possible abstracts and quirky details such as the bubble-blowing Father Christmas toy pictured below, left.

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01 The Aurora Borealis © Bjørn Jørgensen

01 Shoot the light fantastic – head north to photograph the Aurora Borealis

The Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, are at their most dramatic from November to February, so now’s the time to dig out your winter woolies and head north for the light show of a lifetime. They’re at their best in countries above or near the Arctic Circle, but they can be seen as far south as the Shetland Islands, and even the Scottish Highlands if the conditions are right.Wherever you choose to go, the key to capturing the lights on camera is patience, as Norwegian landscape pro Bjørn Jørgensen advises: “The Northern Lights can appear all of a sudden, and disappear just as fast, so you need to be prepared to spend several nights out in the cold without seeing so much as a glimpse.”

“You also need a lens in the 12-24mm range to include as much of the sky as possible, and exposure times need to be kept quite short because the lights move surprisingly quickly. Any longer than about ten seconds results in an indistinct blur. On dark nights this inevitably means having to increase the ISO, so you also need a camera than can cope with high ISOs. Unfortunately, grain is impossible to avoid – it’s the price you pay for getting images of the world’s most breathtaking natural spectacle.”

Get started today…

* Your chances of seeing the Northern Lights are much higher when the earth is being hit by a solar storm – check out www.spaceweather.com for information on the weather in space.

* The darker the surroundings are, the brighter and more powerful the auroras will seem, so avoid locations near towns or cities, which produce a lot of light pollution.

* Try to include some of the landscape and surroundings in the frame, because this helps to add depth and context to the photo.

* Shooting in raw is essential – you’ll need the extra flexibility raw offers when post-processing the files, not least to keep noise to a minimum.

02 Photograph food – cook up a storm and shoot the results

You only have to peruse the display tables at your local book shop to realise that food photography has a style all its own. Slick, stylised and heavily dependent on photographic technique, it offers a great way to develop your still-life and lighting skills.But be warned: shooting food isn’t as easy it looks. Professional food photographer Marie-Louise Avery, who’s worked with everyone from Gordon Ramsay to Nigella Lawson, has this advice for aspiring photo foodies: “The trick is to make it look as effortless as possible, and this usually takes a lot of effort! The key is soft, even lighting. Any shadows will kill food. I work in a light, airy studio with windows on three sides. If I only have one window to work with I use a curved reflector to wrap light around the whole subject.”

Get started today…

* Keep the background clean and clutter-free – if you’re photographing food, you should concentrate on the food.

* For a quick-fix lighting solution, position your main light source at a 45° angle behind the subject, and a reflector opposite it in front of the subject.

* Focus on, and expose for, the front point of the food – this tends to over-expose the rest of the shot slightly, resulting in light and airy images.

* Don’t just shoot whatever’s on the plate – arrange things or line them up so that you have what I call a hero point to focus on, such as the edge of a coffee cup or the seeds of a tomato.

03 Play with fire and smoke – photograph incense trails to create eerie abstract compositions

With the nights closing in, there’s no better time to batten down the hatches and embark on a few indoor photographic projects. So why not try photographing smoke trails, which you can then process to create a still life with a difference. All you need is a sheet of black velvet, a flashgun, and an incense stick. As our art and still-life guru Ben Brain explains, the key to this technique is focusing: “Autofocus will hunt back and forth, searching for a sharp edge to lock on to, so you need to pre-focus on, say, the tip of the incense stick, and then switch to manual mode to lock the focus. The room also needs to be draught-proof, otherwise the smoke will swirl too much. This works best in a darkened room with the smoke lit from the side, so a wireless trigger, or off-camera flash cord, is also a good idea.”

Get started today…

* Take hundreds of shots – subtle differences in the swirls can make all the difference to the final shot.

* Try using a fly swatter or a sheet of card to create additional swirls.

* Set your flash to manual to take more control of the lighting.

* To process your shots, invert them in Photoshop by going to Image>Adjustments>Invert and then use a Colour Balance Adjustment Layer to add a coloured tint.

04 Book a winter photo workshop – transform your nature shots by spending a week with a pro

Have you ever dreamt of being a professional landscape or wildlife photographer, but don’t have the time or the money to make it happen? Then a professionally run photo holiday might be just the ticket. “I’ve been fortunate enough to lead photography tours all over the world, and the one thing I’ve learned is that it doesn’t matter what level you’re at,” says nature and wildlife professional Mark Hamblin. “More advanced photographers are able to shoot landscapes and animals that they wouldn’t have the knowledge or confidence to seek out on their own, while beginners are able to benefit from the knowledge of the professional leading the group, and their fellow photographers. Most nature photographers – pros included – simply don’t have the time to get out into the wilds as often as they’d like, so by getting away from the daily grind and immersing themselves in photography for a week or more they often learn more in that week that they would in a whole year on their own.”

Get started today…

* If a week is too long, consider spending a day with a pro closer to home, either in a small group workshop or on a one-to-one basis.

* A good source of inspiration for both landscape and wildlife photography is the website www.2020v.org, which showcases the work of 20 of the UK’s best-known nature photographers.

05 A Touch of frost © Guy Edwardes

05 Photograph a touch of frost – make the most of cold nights and clear skies to shoot seasonal scenics

For frost to form, you need cold nights and clear skies – thankfully, completely clear skies are much easier to forecast than rain. “It also needs to be still, as any breeze will blow the moisture away before it has a chance to freeze,” says landscape pro Guy Edwardes. “The only thing you need to be wary of is frost or condensation forming on your lens. To get around this I actually leave my camera gear outside overnight.”

Get started today…

* Frost tends to form in hollows, so bear this in mind when considering locations.

* Get in position early – once the sun rises, the frost will burn off in a matter of minutes.

* Vary focal length, angle and composition to get a variety of shots.

* To expose frost correctly, take a meter reading off the frost and dial in +1.5 stops of exposure compensation.

06 Home in on indoor portraits – take home studio portraits without using studio lights

You might think that to shoot professional-looking studio shots at home, you need to invest in a professional home studio kit, but in fact all you need is a flash with a manual setting, a collapsible softbox and a wireless flash trigger. “People get hung up on studio flash,” says social and portrait photographer Brett Harkness, “but for head-and-shoulder shots, dedicated flash softboxes are just as effective.” Lastolite’s Ezyboxes come in three sizes – 38cm, 60cm and 76cm – and can be attached to most flashes. They fold flat for storage and take just minutes to assemble, making them great for location shoots too.

Get started today…

* When using a flash-mounted softbox, simply set your flash to manual and adjust the power to get the correct exposure for the aperture.

* Even if you haven’t got a wireless flash trigger, you can still use an Ezybox on camera, either by pointing it directly at the subject, or by bouncing it off a wall or the ceiling.

07 Shoot architecture in HDR – bring buildings to life by combining multiple exposures

High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques are typically used to bring out every last flake of paint in gritty urban scenes, or every speck of stubble in a character portrait. But they can also be used for more traditional subjects to bring out details in shadows and highlights, and to make the colours really pop. This technique is very effective for architectural images shot at dusk. To get your own HDR shots at dusk, follow these tips from low-light wizard Steve Sharp…

Get started today…

* Wait until it’s almost dark – so that the sky is almost as dark as the foreground – to ensure that it won’t burn out. If you time it right, you’ll only need three exposures (each 1-2 stops apart) to cover the whole tonal range: one for the shadows, one for midtones and one for the highlights.

* You can create an HDR conversion using the Merge to HDR command in Photoshop, but I prefer the Exposure Blending option in Photomatix Pro. The Topaz Adjust plug-in is great at teasing out detail in shadows and highlights.

08 Design a calendar – create a seasonal gift that keeps giving all year round

Most of us enjoy taking photos of our family and friends, but often these records of our treasured memories remain buried on a hard drive. One solution is to revisit your family photos in the run-up to Christmas, edit them down to your favourite few dozen, and then use them to create a professional-looking photo calendar, which you can then enjoy for a whole year without even having to turn on your computer. And best of all, they make great gifts.

Get started today…

* There are dozens of companies offering online design and printing services – try www.nelliestore.co.uk or www.photocreator.co.uk.

* When you’re laying out your calendar, try to keep it seasonal, so people in scarves and hats don’t appear on the June page, for example.

* Keep composition and content varied for each month, and think of themes that might link the images for each month together, such as subject or colour.

09 Hit the streets © David Clapp

09 Hit the streets – Develop an eye for quirky and creative urban images

You can produce images that combine architectural and street photography in an original way by thinking laterally – all you need is a little patience. “It’s about developing an eye for out-of-the-ordinary things that might make for a good subject,” says travel and landscape pro David Clapp. “In this shot of a billboard in Tokyo, the subject is the pink face in the poster. I took loads of frames, but when the lad in the pink top passed in front of the lens, I knew I had the shot I wanted.”

“The shot of the train driver waiting on the platform was also a happy accident. He put his briefcase in the right place, and looked to the right just as the train sped into the station.”

Get started today…

* Don’t be afraid to ask people to move or pose if it will improve your composition – nine times out of ten, they’ll be happy to oblige.

* Look out for colours, shapes and other graphic elements, such as shadows.

* Be creative with shutter speed: to blur people, you need a shutter speed of around ½ sec; to blur a passing train or bus 1/30 sec should be slow enough.

* Try using a tripod to frame your shot, then use a remote shutter release to capture the world as it passes by unawares.

Photo ideas don’t come much more entertaining than this. The idea of placing model figures in amongst ingredients can transform a meal into a miniature landscape. Fry ups turn into meat safaris and soup bowls become steaming savoury jacuzzis. Of course there are many other everyday household objects that make excellent settings for macro scenarios, but food is ideal. It can be easily sculpted and is instantly recognisable. Here, that great British staple, bangers and mash, works a treat as the Smash instant mash mix could be easily manipulated into the shape of a mountain. But there are many other areas in our daily life where miniature adventures can take place – all you need is a little imagination. Here are some photo ideas to give you food for thought…

In addition to a DSLR and tripod, you need:

Location

Food is a wonderful material for making miniature landscapes. Just about anything will do if you use a little imagination. The budget sausages, tinned peas and packet of Smash used for the main image above only cost about £2.50, and they were perfect. And best of all you can eat your set once you’re finished. For a background we found a standard cleaning cloth, which produced a good-looking sky. Once you’ve located and constructed your miniature landscape it’s time to introduce the characters…

Figures

Sourcing the right figures for a scene is essential to creating a story. Hornby sells some wonderful sets of figures. For less than £6 you can pick up a themed collection of around six characters.Preiser has a great range too. Your local model-making shop can also be a good resource for other accessories to refine your figures, such as paint and brushes. Position your figures so they tell a story – a random collection of models on a plate of food will just look, well, random.

Lighting

To light the scene, use two off-camera flashguns: one for the background and one for the subject. Use a home-made reflector to bounce the light. If you only have one flashgun, try using more than one reflector, carefully positioning them to create a sense of depth in the scene. To create a harder and more direct reflected light, try covering one of them with kitchen silver foil.

Macro lens

We used a 60mm macro lens. The figures are tiny, so you will be working at greater than life size magnification. You can of course fit close-up diopters or extension tubes on regular lenses, but a dedicated macro lens is more convenient. Longer focal length macros will give you more working distance between the camera and the models.

Camera settings and technique:

1. Camera setup

For macro effects to work here, you need to keep your camera setup as simple as possible. Because we were working with multiple flashguns, we needed to switch everything to manual, including exposure settings, focus and flash power. Start off by establishing a good general exposure, establishing the depth of field you want. This will vary from scene to scene, but here we used f/8, which was perfect for the scale of the set. Next, introduce the main light, adjusting the flash power rather than changing the camera settings. Use your DSLR’s LCD screen and histogram to assess the lighting, and once you’re happy with the main light, introduce the second background light. You’ll need to focus manually for precision focusing at close range.

2. Lighting tips

In our setup we used two flashguns and a simple home-made reflector to light the scene. If you don’t have two flashguns you can easily improvise with your on camera’s pop-up flash and a more elaborate combination of reflectors – try using silver foil as an alternative to white card. If you do have two flashguns, position one (set to Slave mode) to illuminate the background. Remember, lighting the background separately helps create depth. The other flashgun is taken off-camera, and positioned to the left of the scene to give a ‘sculptural’ feel to the mash mountain.

3. Additional equipment

We used a Seculine Twin Link T2D radio trigger to fire the flash remotely. A small reflector made of white card is perfect to fill in the shadow areas and was positioned to the right. Natural light can also work well, so if you don’t want to use flash, find an area near a north-facing window.

Top tip: think of a story

However lighthearted your scene, establishing a sense of narrative is really important. In our sausage shot above you can see that there’s a conversation between the characters. “Help, I’m stuck in sausage fat!” There’s an imagined dialogue between them that makes the scene seem realistic. So when choosing figures, try to visualise how they will interact and what type of scene will work best. Try to add drama (or comedy) for extra impact….

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