Making beautiful photographs involves nothing more than a bit of thought. While it often helps to have decent equipment, all you really need is to take a moment before each shot to think clearly about what you are attempting to capture or create.
The following guidelines are intended to help novice, non-artistic, and/or non-technical picture-takers immediately improve their photography.
- Bring home much more pleasing memories from your travels;
- Make more artistic portraits of your family, pets, or friends;
- Be satisfied and excited instead of disappointed every time you look at your photos; or
- Simply enjoy the process of making pictures more;
Beginning Photography Tip #1:
Move in Closer
Each time you spot a subject, snap a shot and then move in closer for a better shot. Having your subject almost fill the frame helps your viewer understand and appreciate your photo. Also, details are often more interesting than an overall view.
Keep moving in closer until you are sure the photo will successfully represent your subject.
If it is at all possible that your subject may move, bolt, fly away, stop smiling, or just get tired of waiting for you to take the picture, shoot once right away.
Practice getting quicker and quicker to the draw.
Do not worry about taking too many pictures and do not wait until you're absolutely certain all the knobs and buttons are in their correct position.
As the motto of one of BetterPhoto old t-shirts states, "Shoot First, Ask Questions Later."
Beginning Photography Tip #3:
Compose Your Picture with Care
Even if you don't plan on selling your photo to the Smithsonian, make every effort to keep it balanced and beautiful. On one level or another, everyone responds better to a picture that has all elements in balance.
Strive to lead the eye along an interesting path through the photo, with the use of strong lines or patterns.- Keep the horizon level;
- Crop out extra elements that you are not interested in (more on this is the next tip);
- Consciously place your subject where you think it most belongs rather than just accepting it wherever it happens to land in the photo;
- Play with perspective so that all lines show a pattern or lead the eye to your main subject;
Beginning Photography Tip #4:Be Selective
Discern what you are really interested in and center your efforts on getting the best photo of this subject, whether it a still life, your funny cat, your doggy, a friend, a family matter, a mood, a place or culture.
Then be sure to keep anything that would distract out of the picture. Go as far as Ansel Adams did to remove unwanted elements.
The easiest way to do this is to watch your borders - the edges of the view you see through the camera's viewfinder. Then recompose if anything - such as an unattractive telephone wire, an old soda can, a distracting sign, your finger, or your camera strap - hangs into your picture.
It can become more difficult if you want to, say, shoot a San Francisco cable car without a single distracting telephone line. But even in such a difficult case, you have many options.
You can:
- Focus in on a close-up that tells the whole story;
- Move around until you arrange the telephone lines into a neat pattern that leads to the subject; or
- Take a panning shot that makes the cable car remain in focus while the background goes blurry.
Beginning Photography Tip #5:
Focus on Your Subject
Practice shooting with different apertures and monitor the results afterwards to
learn how depth-of-field affects your photo.
You will find that a smaller depth-of-field (and smaller f-stop #) focuses all the attention upon your subject. This is great for taking a picture of your child, your dog, or your husband - subjects stand out against a blurry background.
Likewise, you will find that a greater depth-of-field (bigger f-stop number) will make everything from here to eternity appear in focus. This will help make those landscapes fascinating and lovely.
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