As Halloween and the holidays are getting closer I wanted to talk a little about how I go about photographing and documenting the everyday parts of those big days…

I love the holidays and I grew up in a house where my mother decorated for each holiday and made them feel so special and magical. I’ve tried to do that in my own home, but admit that decorating…on time, at least…isn’t my strong suit. I do love when the house is decorated for the different holidays throughout the year and I love looking back through the photos over the years and see how things have changed. I love to look back at photos of my own childhood and see the photographs of me in my Halloween costumes, by the Christmas tree or hunting for my Easter basket. I also love seeing the way that my mom would decorate our home. Seeing some of those same decorations so many years later is so cool to me and I hope that my family loves looking back on these little “detail” shots of our holidays.

In the collage above you can see that these aren’t really the traditional holiday photos, in these images I’m trying to capture shots of the details that make up those big holidays and how our home and life feels during those times.

Some ideas on how to get “everyday” photos of your holidays:

• New Years – glasses of sparkling cider, the ball dropping on the tv, how you spend your day (football, parades, relaxing, etc)
• Valentine’s Day – photos of the kids making cards, their Valentine box, cookie making, fun foods
• St. Patrick’s Day – anything green, any fun traditions that your family participates in
• Easter – the egg hunt, candies, what’s in the baskets (or eggs), fancy new shoes or outfits, the spring colors
• Fourth of July – the fireworks stand, the foods, the fireworks, parades
• Halloween – costume hunting, the house decorated (don’t forget close-ups!), getting dressed up (detail shots of the costumes, makeup), the haul, trick or treating
• Thanksgiving – the spread, the table decorations, family traditions, the recipes, people making the food, the menu
• Christmas – all of the decorations (around town, too!), traditions that you participate in during the month, wish lists, wrapping, cards, etc

There may be a lot of other holidays that your family celebrates and the important thing to remember is getting photographs of the details – with whatever camera you have handy –  so that many years later you can look back on your images and really get a feel for how your family celebrated those  holidays.

This post is part of a 31 day series. Read the first post here about documenting everyday life and see a list of all of the other posts in the series.