An avid digital photographer, I've read dozens of books and articles about how to take great photos and noticed five fundamental tips repeated in every one of them. When I keep these factors in mind, I get pretty good results.1. Keep your camera set to automatic. Experienced photographers are going to scoff at me for this tip, but tough. I've lost too many great photo ops because I paused too long to fumble with controls. Unless you're a pro photographer or artist in training, you will get great photos using your camera's automatic setting or preset scenes. The only controls I use routinely are scene selection and EV, which enables me to brighten or darken a scene. Not worrying about controls frees me to focus on the artistic merits of the subject before me.
2. Carefully compose your photo. I use the time pro photographers spend adjusting manual settings to focus on making sure my photo will take maximum advantage of the subject and setting to capture its true artistic essence. This means framing or moving around the subject to take maximum advantage of its environment. For example, the rainbow photo above could have been framed to include just the rainbow and gray background. Yawn. Or I could have zoomed out to include utility poles and wires. Yikes! Framing it with the palm trees gives it contrast, texture and context -- the elements of an interesting photo.
3. Whenever possible, use natural lighting. Go to a sports stadium at night, and you'll see cameras flashing like fireworks throughout the game. To me, this is proof that too many of us amateurs are flash addicts. Unless you own a camera with a laser for a flash, the distance limit of your flash will be about eight to ten feet. Using it for distances greater than that is a waste. For most shoots -- outdoors and indoors -- natural lighting will properly illuminate your subject and yield better photos with more texture. There is one exception, however, that I always keep in mind. When shooting portraiture in bright sunshine when your subject has its back to the sun or is under a tree that casts shadows, a flash will help illuminate their faces and prevent ugly shadowing.
4. Use a tripod. Shaky hands blur photos. For most of us pressing the trigger button alone will move the camera slightly. A lot of pro photographers recommend that we weld our cameras to a tripod. I'm not quite that hardcore, but whenever I have the luxury of time, I use my tripod. This is especially important when shooting extreme close-up or distant objects with maximum zoom. In these cases, your camera's field of vision is so small that any little shake will result in big blurring. The tripod is also critical in low light situations when the shutter will have to remain open longer to collect adequate light.
5. Take lots of photos. This is the BIG KAHUNA of tips that pro photographers don't like to discuss. Despite all their years of training and technical ability, they routinely take tons of photos to get just the right shot. When I think of my favorite photographers, my mind can only recall about five photos they took. Was it because they only took five photos in their careers? Probably not. It's because of the thousands and thousands of photos they took, five were worthy of artistic immortality. To get the best shot, shoot your subject or scene from many angles. You're bound to find just the right factors that produce a photo that expresses your impression of a subject or scene. And to me that's what the art of photography is all about.
