Better Pictures and Digital Photography Tips

By: Rick Barnes Click author's name for more of his/her articles

Today's cameras make taking pictures a lot easier than the one's of yesterday. There is always room for improvement, however. Use the following tips to help make your photos go from acceptable to great.

Use light

Light is the photographer's paint brush. For outdoor shots, the best light is found during the first two and last two hours of the day, when the sun strikes at a low angle. But some of the best shots are often taken as the sun breaks through a cloud sky, particularly just after a storm. If you're lucky and have the patience to wait, the sun may strike just the right spot in the scene to make a perfect picture. In outdoor portraits, avoid direct sunlight into the subject's eyes causing squinting. It's far better to use fill-in flash.

Fill the frame

People shots vary from close up head-shots to full-length. Whatever you choose, fill the frame with your subject, don't leave lots of space around them unless it adds information. A garden may be interesting if you're taking a portrait of a gardener, but otherwise concentrate on the subject and keep the picture uncluttered. This applies to all subjects, including still life, not just people.

1. Always be aware of the background. You don't want to find trees growing out of people's heads or a passing vehicle to draw attention from your subject. Sometimes moving your subject just a couple steps to either side can make all the difference.

2. Use available light. If your digital camera has an option to turn the flash off and it's light enough outside to read a book then use the available light and turn the flash off. In general camera flashes are too harsh for human skin and make all of us look pale. Indoors, where there isn't enough daylight, place your subject by a window and use your fill flash feature.

3. Aim your camera slightly down at the person's face. Also don't shoot just face on to the person, try a little to the side, a three quarter view, so that you see more of their face. Remember camera higher looking down and a three quarter view, it will slim your subject.
4. Remember your focus. Get closer to your subject. Fill the frame with your subject and there will be no doubt as to what the picture is saying.
6. Never put your subject dead center. Put your just slightly off center; not a lot just a little. When you're shooting groups of people, find the imaginary center line of your group and put that line just a bit off center in your view through your lens or screen.
Following these tips won't turn you into an award-winning photographer today, but you will be on your way to better, more powerful photographs that others will comment on for years to come.

5. Get outside. Motivate yourself to get out and take photographs in natural light. Take several normal 'point and shoot' pictures to get a feel for the lighting at different times of the day and night. Go outside at all times of day, especially those times when anybody with any sense is sleeping, eating, or watching television; lighting at these times is often dramatic and unusual to many people precisely because they never get to see it!

6.Keep the lens clear of caps, thumbs, straps and other obstructions. It's basic, yes, but it can ruin a photograph completely. This is less of a problem with modern live-preview digital cameras, and even less of a problem with an SLR camera. But people still make these mistakes from time to time.

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