My Favorite 15 Photo Gifts For the Season.
SOMETHING PHOTOISH FOR EVERYONE IN YOUR LIFE. INCLUDING YOURSELF.
Here’s the thing. We are all photographers now. The iPhone did that. Which means that we are all photo-aware in some way. Whether we just enjoy getting the latest pictures of a loved one or have found new joy in photography as a creative outlet, digital photography has added a wonderful dimension to our world.
Business has taken notice, and there are new photography related services, apps, and merchandise being launched every day. Digital access has allowed for clever new ways to use your photos and the popularity of the iPhone as a camera has spawned a marketplace for add-on accessories.
If you are starting to think about upgrades or gifts for the holidays, here are some items that have caught my eye. Some are longtime favs and some are new and interesting. Call it a “Fun with Photos” list. In a couple cases I like them so much I’ve acquired an affiliate link (and so note) but most are simply cool, useful, or inspiring for the photographer in us. Now that Black Friday sales are beginning to appear, it’s a great time to share my go-to list.
Enjoy.
MULTI DEVICE CHARGER
I used to take 2 chargers on trips to make sure my iPhone and Apple Watch were always topped up and ready for a full day’s use. Then I got AirPods which had to be fitted in. And my iPad. My travel kit was a mess of charging blocks and wires - both Lightning and USB-C. And it wasn’t that elegant at home, either, with multiple charging wires draped across my bedside table.
Now you can get multi-device charging stands that will top up your iPhone, Watch, and AirPods all in one go. Some will fold up to the size of a small matchbox (remember those?) and use a single power adapter/cable. The sweetener is that your iPhone can become a bedside clock when turned horizontal. I have no recommended brand, but I like the ones that fold up tiny.
Search on “3-in-1 folding iPhone chargers”
POCKET TRIPOD PROv2
There are times when you just want a tripod to hold your iPhone when taking photos or videos. Maybe it’s a selfie of a dozen people or you want to capture a time-lapse video of a sunrise. The Pocket Tripod is dope. It folds down to the size of a credit card, can be set up in seconds, and can fit in a pocket, wallet, or purse for those odd moments you never plan for. It’s also a great conversation piece at parties. geometrical-inc.com
MILK BOOKS
If I had to pick only one provider for all my photo books, it would be MILK. Milkbooks.com is the digital printing arm of a world-renowned publisher of elegant coffee table books. They know their stuff. Highest quality paper and printing at an accessible price. MILK (Moments of Inspiration, Love, and Kinship) also plugs into Apple Photos’ Project module so it is ultra easy to design and order. In addition to a complete line of photo books (soft pages) and photo albums (hard pages) you can create magazines and Moleskine branded notebooks with your photos. Very cool. milkbooks.com
ARGENTUM CAMERA APP
If you have an old school black and white photographer in your circle, you have to treat them to the Argentum Camera App. This is my go-to app for making B&W images on the iPhone. Argentum gives you 6 filters that simulate the black and white photography styles of six famous photographers - Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Irving Penn, Gary Winogrand, Yousuf Karsh, and Dorothea Lange. Being a landscape photographer, I’m a fan of the high contrast Ansel Adams look. A wonderful feature of the app is that you capture both a B&W filtered version and a color version of your image. And you get to view the image in B&W on the iPhone as you compose it. argentum.camera
CLEAN MY MAC
Sooner or later every photographer runs up against storage space or glitchy performance on their Mac. Sometimes it’s because they’re running on 5+ years old Macs, or they’ve just maxed out the space available, or they never do maintenance, or . . . Something. Clean My Mac is the Swiss Army knife of Mac troubleshooting and repair. Yes, there are deeper, geekier maintenance solutions, but CMM is reliable, easy to use, and effective. It finds and deletes junk, cleans up temporary (unnecessary) support files, and offers basic malware and security tools. You can find the largest files and where they are, as well as apps that are outdated or you never use. It’s a great sidekick for every day users to keep things running smoothly. MacPaw.com/cleanmymac (affiliate link)
ACASIS SWAPPABLE HIGH-SPEED SSD STORAGE & 10-IN-1 HUB DOCKING STATION
This is for the tech geek in your life.
If Clean My Mac is the Swiss Army Knife for software maintenance, the ACASIS 10-in-1 Hub is the hardware version. This sweet little device is the perfect companion for anyone with a MacBook Pro or Air and wants to connect to anything other than USB-C devices. It has a TF/SD card reader and ports for USB-A, USB-C, audio jack, HDMI, and Ethernet. If that means nothing to you, it just means that you can plug it into your Mac and get back all the older connection types that no longer fit on newer MacBooks. You can also plug in an external monitor and connect directly to a wired network (faster than Wi-Fi) when available.
But that’s not all. The 10-in-1 Hub has a slot for an NVMe SSD card to add storage, making it a connection hub AND a solid state drive. I added 2TB to mine and it always goes with me when gathering photos for someone or for quick transfers of large files between devices.
Also works with USB-C equipped iPhones and iPads. Acasis.com
FAIRY LIGHT WALL GALLERY & PHOTO ROPES
I love the decorative strings of fairy lights made popular during the holidays, but we use them year around.
Photos change with the medium. While I love, love, love the convenience and depth of digital images, printed pictures have a life all their own. They offer the illusion of permanence in ways that digital does not, and can define a space. They invite consideration. But we take so many pictures these days; how does one commit them all to wall or desk space?
With a fairy lights wall gallery.
Stringing a set of fairy lights on a section of your wall is easy and can be temporary or a year round treat. For your holiday decorating or as a do-it-yourself gift. Strings of fairy lights are available from multiple sources in a variety of lengths. They may use battery power or require a wall outlet. Combine that with some round-headed push pins and colored binder clips and the setup is complete. All you need are the photos.
Most online photo printers offer 24 pictures to 4x6 or 5x7 which is perfect for the gallery. Square prints can create a more orderly display or mix sizes and formats for a more eclectic look. The wall gallery can also serve double duty as a holiday card display. The choice is yours.
Search online for Photo Clip String Lights or Photo Rope to find done-for-you kits.
DAILY CALENDAR
One of the coolest calendars I’ve seen is the Daily Calendar from Social Print Studio. You get to set up 365 different photos to show one-a-day in a small desktop stand. A great gift to stay closer to a distant loved one or a family retrospective for a child away from home. See it at socialprintstudio.com
MOMENTUM PLUS DASHBOARD
I struggled with all manner of daily organizers until I found Momentum. This browser extension pulls together virtually everything related to my task and to-do lists as well as a daily focus, Pomodoro time management, list of deadlines, notepad, motivational quotes, and more. It helps eliminate having a zillion open apps and browser windows.
But the defining feature is it’s just nice to use! All the links and reminders are backed by a featured photo from some inspiring location. The design is top drawer and the rich feature set customizable. It just makes my workday a more pleasant and efficient experience. There is a free version with a reduced set of features, but I highly recommend getting the Plus. For Safari and Chrome on the Mac. Momentumdash.com (affiliate link).
ENGINEER PRINTS & ENGINEER PRINT CALENDARS
Nothing makes a photo stand out as much as going big. Parabo Press offers 3’ x 4’ Engineer Prints that make wonderful wall decorations for a dorm, family room, or office. They are printed on light weight paper used for architectural plans and can be pinned to the wall or used with 3’ Wood Poster Rails. You can blow up a favorite photo or create a collage of pictures and graphics. Affordable and chic. Parabo also offers Engineer Prints in whole year calendar layouts for a clever, large, one-of-a-kind calendar treatment. Parabo.press
PHOTOMATOR
Apple Photos’ color editing tools have become the gold standard for user experience in a photo management system, but if you want to raise the bar a notch, the logical move is Photomator.
Where Photos provides the editing features most used by every day photographers, Photomator offers more advanced color corrections and retouching, layer masks for selective changes, filter presets, and access to images outside of Apple Photos. Like Apple Photos, Photomator is a non-destructive editor, which means you can always undo your changes, and the app saves your edit right back to Apple Photos.
If you want an endorsement, there’s none better than the fact that Apple bought Photomator and its big brother Pixelmator Pro, a competitor of Adobe Photoshop. How they ultimately fit into the Apple Photos ecosystem is yet to be seen, but It seems like Apple is doubling down on photography apps in the same way it has advanced mobile camera technology in the iPhone. For photo enthusiasts using Apple technology, the company wants to offer more on the software side and Photomator is a great place to start. For iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Pixelmator.com/Photomator
MOMENT LENS SYSTEM
Photography is all about your point of view on the world, and at some point that comes down to the lens you’re using. For me, that point of view included a telephoto and an ultra-wide lens. As much as I loved the iPhone, I always felt limited by the single standard lens in the early models. When 3rd parties began to offer add-on iPhone lenses, I jumped at them. Suddenly I could use a telephoto, an ultra-wide, and even a fun fisheye lens on my iPhone to get back something of the perspective I enjoyed on my cameras.
To be fair, Apple has made unbelievable advances in mobile imaging with the iPhone 16 and 17, so add-on lenses have become an enthusiast accessory. But for those who want a bit more from their photography and aren’t ready to upgrade to a full on camera, iPhone lenses are a great alternative. Especially if they are using an older iPhone.
The Moment Lens system is where I would go.
Moment was one of the early providers of accessory iPhone lenses and they know their stuff. The glass is top quality and the attachment setup is quick and easy to use. The foundation is an iPhone case with twist lock connectors for the lenses. If you have a video creator on your gift list it also supports anamorphic (cinema style) lenses and filters. You can see full details and use cases on the Moment website.
The point of it all is that as impressive as the Apple Fusion lenses are, software can only do so much with the built-in lenses and tiny image sensors in the iPhone. Larger high quality glass lenses can deliver a better image to the sensor which can result in a photo with more detail and less distortion. Not to mention creative options.
I love the Fisheye lens for an extreme eye-catching perspective. Even the 18mm ultra wide lens offers a different look than the built-in ultra wide camera. If you love close ups the Macro lens is worth a look.
Yes, this is all enthusiast stuff. It’s worth exploring the Moment site and material to see what accessories make sense for you. It does require a Moment case to mount the accessories but when upgrading to a new iPhone, you only need to get a new case to keep using the accessories. ShopMoment.com
PEAKTO
Since we’re talking enthusiasts, I have to mention Peakto image management software.
Peakto’s mission is to resolve the multi-application conundrum that most photographers endure after years of image making. Photos from different cameras with different formats, brief love affairs with emerging editing and management software, multiple volumes of photos and videos that have accumulated over time.
This software manages it all. In one place you can see all your photos and videos collected from Photos Libraries, Lightroom Catalogs, Capture One databases, the Finder, and more. It’s the thirty thousand foot view of your complete photography collection with the ability to find and zoom in on any one image at a granular level. AI search and categorization complete the picture.
Even more impressive is the support for video, which gets similar features and management tasks. Object and people search. Contact sheets. Compiling segments and exporting for an edit.
Peakto is rapidly evolving as the glue that can hold together a lifetime of images and let the photographer/videographer appreciate their body of work in a 21st century way. cyme.io/en/products/peakto/ (affiliate link)
SEA LEGACY
I named my business Bluewater Imaging as a daily reminder of my love for the sea and the wonderful places it’s taken me. And as a lifelong photographer I cherish those who go out and create images of places, people, and experiences that I will probably never see. Growing up in rural Washington State I had an appreciation of nature, but National Geographic was my window on the world and I came to understand the power of pictures as a way to educate and illustrate man’s relationship to the world around us.
For several years I’ve supported Sea Legacy and their mission to educate and advocate for ocean conservancy through that power of pictures. I encourage you to make or gift a donation to Sea Legacy and share the stories they tell to support this important work. SeaLegacy.org