Fifteen Top Tips for Taking Great Christmas Photos

1) Get In Close - it's the faces your interested in, not the shoes. Fill the frame with the face or faces.

2) Keep it natural - don't over-pose pictures - natural pictures are often the best ones. Keep your camera ready and take peoples pictures when they' are not looking. This is especially true for children.

3) Get down with the kids: while your children are playing with the Christmas presents you want to be down on your knees or tummy photographing from their height.

4) If you are posing to be in a photo - guys face square forward and look big. Girls should turn slightly sideways and kick the hip out for a more feminine shape.

5) If you're a couple, girls should rest their head on the fella's shoulder for a nice relaxed, but loving and joined portrait.

6) If you're shooting one person, then put them off-centre in the frame rather than bang in the middle - it makes a more interesting picture.

7) If you're shooting a couple make sure your camera is not focussing down the gap in the middle of them - leaving you with an out of focus picture.

8) If you're shooting three or more people, try and arrange the heads into a triangle, or a circle if there's lots of people - this makes a much stronger composition.

9) Lots of Christmas pictures are taken at parties - but try and keep the drinks out of shot - they look messy and ruin many a good photo.

10) If you can, try and shoot without flash - many new digital cameras can shoot in quite dark places without flash - the images will look much more natural.

11) If you have to use flash - see if your camera has a "night" mode - this will make sure your subject is properly lit, but will also show the background well too.

12) Backgrounds are interesting too - and let you remember where you were when the picture was taken.

13) If you've got an add-on flash unit that fits to the top of your camera - tip it towards the ceiling to "bounce" of the ceiling - it's a much nicer light and also stops red-eye

14) See if you can find a plain wall as a background, doesn't matter what colour - but if you get a choice blue works best for faces. Look out for fire signs, plant pots, etc. Don't stand the subject right against the wall though - the more space between your subject and the background the better.

15) Take a second picture straight after the first - often the moment when people relax after they think the picture has been taken is the best one.