Festive downtime is perfect for photography projects. And you don’t need any special equipment to get creative with your family this Christmas: from double exposures to 3D visuals, the camera tricks below require only the iPhone in your pocket.
What’s more, the five tricks we’ve picked are straightforward enough for beginners to try, yet offer the scope for enthusiasts to be more adventurous. So whatever your skill level with an iPhone camera, you should find an idea in our list to inspire your shooting this holiday season.
And if these suggestions leave you feeling motivated to try more new ideas with your camera, take a look at our 52 photography projects feature, which covers inventive techniques to keep you entertained for every week of 2024.
1. Shoot long exposures with Spectre
From vehicle taillights to skies filled with fireworks, long exposures let you paint with light by keeping your camera’s shutter open for an extended length of time. To shoot these on an iPhone, you need an app that lets you manually control shutter speed (or at least gives the impression of doing so). There are several of these, but Spectre is one of the most powerful.
With AI assistance up its sleeve, it eliminates many of the restrictions usually associated with long-exposure photography. Chief among them is the need for a tripod: thanks to automatic stabilization, Spectre lets you shoot handheld long exposures. With the free version, you can capture 3-second exposures. Purchase Spectre Pro for $4.99 / £4.99 / AU$7.99 and you unlock the option of 5, 9, 15 and 30-second photos.
The possibilities for festive long-exposures are plentiful. You could shoot a fire (like the above), a crowded Christmas market to capture the holiday hubbub, or use Spectre’s clever crowd removal tool to create an eerily empty scene.
Another option is a snap of traffic flowing alongside twinkly Christmas lights. Or get the whole family involved and make a seasonal snap to share: equip everyone with a sparkler, set the exposure to 15s and then spell out your festive message.
2. Capture 3D scenes with Luma AI
You no longer need special equipment to capture accurate 3D visuals: just an iPhone and Luma AI. Completely free, the app lets you record objects or scenes in 3D to create lifelike virtual models. You can then share these as interactive experiences for others to explore as if they’re standing there.
The results are significantly more immersive than a 360-degree photo. Because Luma AI captures depth, lighting and 3D detail, the perspective realistically shifts as you pan around a scene. And scanning is as simple as moving your smartphone around within the space, covering as many viewpoints as possible. There’s a handy walkthrough in the app to get you started.
Luma AI is ideal if you want to mix up your festive dispatches. Instead of mailing a card, you could capture a 3D model of your Christmas tree and share a link to the digital version with loved ones.
Luma AI is also skilful at capturing rooms and interiors – useful if you want to share the festive feeling with family or friends who are far away. Or if a family portrait is a holiday tradition, why not have the clan stand to attention and try shooting them with Luma AI? Your future, VR headset-owning self might thank you in a decade or so.
3. Take Christmas portraits with NeuralCam
With everyone dressed up and looking their best, Christmas is a perfect time to take family portraits. Useful as your iPhone’s portrait mode is, though, it has certain limitations – not least the fact that you need to be within a certain distance of your subject to create those artful blurred backgrounds.
NeuralCam offers an instant upgrade for your festive portraits. Priced at $4.99 / £4.99 / AU$7.99, its AI Bokeh mode allows you to capture subjects with soft backdrops at any distance. Already famed for its powerful NightMode and NeuralHDR features, the NeuralCam app’s new trick deploys a depth-generation model to map your image and blur the background accordingly.
Because you can use AI Bokeh across any lens – including telephoto, if your iPhone has one – it gives you the ability to create professional-looking candid portraits from afar. That might be relatives pulling a cracker, gleeful little-ones opening presents or grandma falling asleep on the sofa.
As with Apple’s portrait mode, you can select different apertures to control the intensity of the depth of field illusion. You can also pair it with NightMode to shoot portraits after dark, creating festive bokeh effects with colorful Christmas lights strung across the background.
4. Create double exposures with Snapseed
Double exposures are one of the oldest photography projects. Traditionally created by exposing the same frame of film twice or more, they allow you to produce artistic compositions by overlaying details from different scenes in the same image. But you don’t need an analog camera to shoot one today.
Several iPhone apps allow you to create a double-exposure effect. Snapseed is one of our favorites. A comprehensive photo editor from Google, it features a built-in double exposure mode that makes it easy to combine images.
Open a photo in Snapseed, tap Tools at the bottom, then select Double exposure. You’ll then need to select your second image, before using color presets to adjust the tonal balance, and the opacity slider to set which image shows through stronger.
Christmas is a particularly good holiday for shooting double exposures, as its symbolism and decorations offer fantastic potential for creative layering. That might mean combining a portrait with a shot of tinsel to give a sparkly feel. Or pairing a snap of festive snacks with a snowy scene for juxtaposition. Half the magic of double exposures is having a go. And unlike analog, you can change these overlays in an instant.
5. Frame the perfect festive sunset with PhotoPills
If you’re celebrating the holiday season somewhere with strong winter sun, a sunset could be the perfect backdrop to a festive family snap. The hard part is knowing exactly where the Sun will be when, and setting up accordingly. That’s where PhotoPills comes in.
Yours for $10.99 / £10.99 / AU$17.99, it’s the most expensive experiment in this list. But it’s also up there with the coolest. Essentially a planning tool for the Sun, Moon and stars, it allows you to prepare for photos by showing you where each celestial body will be at any given time, based on your location.
Using augmented reality, you can frame up shots ahead of the golden moment, with timelines and paths superimposed onto your live view. It will also forecast useful photographic moments, including golden hour.
Say you want to photograph the holiday decorations outside your house using your iPhone’s Night Mode. If you think the composition would be complemented by the presence of the moon, you can use PhotoPills to see precisely when the orb will hover above your chimney. The fun part is heading outdoors to scout locations, and starting conversations about the stars with your family – a fitting activity for Christmas time.
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