Should I Take a Photo or a Video?

Have you ever thought: should I take a photo of this moment or a video?
Or, better yet, have you ever taken a photo and realized: you should have taken a video?
Or taken a video and realized: you should have simply taken a photo?

Maybe I’m the only crazy-type-of-person who thinks of these things (if so, welcome into my brain), but I bet (hope) there are at least a handful of other crazy-like-me-people out there in the world, somewhere, that think of situations & strategically plan out whether I’ll be taking videos or photos (or both). (I’ll let you in on a secret: Christmas mornings are ROUGH – there is some serious strategy involved!)

Think about it: there are many key moments in our lives that we want documented.
Christmas mornings.
Birthday parties.
School events.
Performances.
Vacations.
Trips to the Zoo.
Surprise parties.
Big announcements.
And the list goes on and on.

-Maybe you’re the type of person who is naturally prone to taking photos and you hardly ever consider taking videos. That’s great!
-Maybe you’re the type of person who is naturally prone to taking videos and you hardly ever consider taking photos. That’s great!
But what happens when those two worlds collide & you want to do BOTH?

If you’ve been around my digital space for the last 2 years, you know that I’ve become obsessed with taking more home movies. (If you haven’t been around lately: Hi! How are you? I’m so glad you’re here!)
But, I’m also a professional photographer, so you can imagine that having photos is exceptionally important to me as well (and something I equally love capturing).

So, when considering the question:
Should I take a photo or a video?
The good news is:
There truly is no right or wrong answer.

But, if you are thinking about it (which means you’re a bit eccentric and a little crazy – welcome to the cool-kids-club) – here are a few things to consider:

VIDEOS ARE GREAT FOR:

– reactions (like opening gifts, being surprised, seeing or doing something special and different)
– movement (running, jumping, playing, swinging, dancing, wrestling, etc.)
– voices (singing, mis-pronouncing words, laughter)

PHOTOS ARE GREAT FOR:

– posed moments (“everyone look at the camera and say ‘cheese’!”)
– emotion (the entire spectrum from joy to sorrow – a single frame of pure emotion can tell a beautiful story)
– smiles (everyone needs a beautiful portrait of someone smiling!)

Here’s the bottom line though:
The “rules” are made to be broken.

Go ahead and freeze someone jumping in mid-air – those make such fun photographs!
Go ahead and capture video of that pure emotion that drips over into laughter!
There are no rules.

Just, go out there and capture your special moments in ANY format that is readily available and feels natural to you.

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*There are a few scenarios though where it just makes sense to capture the moment one way or another.

One of my favorite moments to think about is when we go see our town light the big Christmas tree on Main Street for the first time of the Christmas season. We have a big parade, thousands of people crowd the Main Street of our little town – it’s a dynamic event that really kicks off the holiday season. Everyone stands around the dark tree & counts down from 10 to 1 – the mood is electric!

I always look around & see people poised to photograph the moment & I always laugh (to myself – com’on, I’m not that heartless).
Because, think about it: once the tree is lit, it’s lit!!
There is no prize for being “the first” to photograph the lit Christmas tree.
And they aren’t going to turn it off again – it’s on for the rest of the evening and every single night until the New Year.

So, in that scenario, it’s way better to take a VIDEO of the count-down, the lights popping on the tree, and the subsequent cheering that always erupts. And then, once that is all over, you can take your photos.

That seems to make sense, right?

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I think there is a bigger question to ask though:
What is your plan next?

What are you going to do with your photos and/or videos after you take them?

If you are a scrapbooker (or create a yearly family yearbook) – you probably want to lean more toward photos.
If you have a Chatbooks subscription – you probably want to lean more toward photos.
If you are purposefully filling frames around your house – you probably want to lean more toward photos.

If you lean more toward creating TikToks & Reels – you probably want to take more videos.
If you lean more toward creating films for your family in iMovie – you probably want to take more videos.
If you want to send your home movies to me to curate into a finished film (YAY) – you probably want to take more videos.

So, the bigger question to ask is: what do you plan to do NEXT?
(And that should be a contributing factor in what format you use to capture the moment.)
Do you have a plan for what you’re doing with your photos and videos?

*And don’t forget: you can always take a photo while you are recording video!