I’m always looking to capture the special moments of the Christmas and December holiday season. I’ve always wanted to create a list of photo ideas and keep it on my phone to refer back to when I’m trying to capture something special in the middle of an extra busy season. I finally took some time to put one together. I hope you will find it inspiring and helpful!

If you’re looking for a creative way to preserve festive memories, the Waterlogue app is a fantastic tool to transform your holiday photos into stunning watercolor-style art pieces. Here’s how to use this app to turn your seasonal snapshots into one-of-a-kind keepsakes.

Noir (or noire) is the French word for black. An iPhone filter by the same name also creates the look of high-contrast, black-and-white film noir. I have to admit that I often forget about using native iPhone filters. I love playing around in editing apps after I take the shot, but I recently rediscovered that shooting with another filter can be a creative experience.

No matter what your Thanksgiving celebration will look like this year, it’s worth documenting. Make sure you have your camera and take photos of everyone you spend the day with. Document where you ate the Thanksgiving feast and who was there to celebrate with you. We already had our Thanksgiving feast in October so we are planning to order takeout Chinese food, and watch some shows and movies. That’s worth documenting also!

Jeff, Alex, and I all went on a RZR riding adventure this past weekend in Marysvale, Utah. I have lived in Utah most of my life and I had never heard or Marysvale or been anywhere around the area. It was so cool to find new and beautiful places right in my own state. We rode on the Paiute Trail, visited Fremont Indian State Park, saw old mining settlements, and the most beautiful scenery. We had picnic lunches on the trails and went on small hikes. We listened to a lot of music and talked to each other over our intercom system headphones. We also enjoyed the company of 3 other couples who we have been friends with for a long time. It was a lot of fun!

I love to share a variety of tools to make photos special. I’m always looking for new apps and sites that give me great options to make my pictures unique and exciting. I was excited to find Colorcinch (cartoonize.net) and I love that you can access it through a browser (on any computer or smart device). They offer lots of options for free accounts and you can upgrade to an inexpensive monthly or annual plan if you want even more features.

Here are some of the cool things you can do with this site:

While everyone around the world is in different stages of Covid lockdown, there are many people who are starting to travel again thanks to vaccinations and great medical advances. Even in the best of cases, long-distance travel isn’t always feasible or even affordable. Those are some of the reasons why exploring your own hometown can be a great option. I think it’s also important to be familiar with your own surroundings and appreciate your location. I find that I feel happier about where I live when I take the time to enjoy what there is around me!

I’ve written about this before, but there really is just one trick that has helped me improve my photography the most, and that is daily practice. I’ve noticed that the time periods in my life where my photos look the best coincides with when I was actually taking pictures each and every day.

My longtime followers will probably remember my linen photo board from our last home. I put it together about 7 years ago and loved looking at it every single day. When we moved to our new home in February, I knew that I would want to continue on the tradition, but also make it a little easier to update as time went on and I wanted to swap out for some newer photos. I’m so excited to show you how it all turned out!