Tips For Better Photos : Week 1
Some of you may remember when I started these last year. There are several new subscribers to the Blog that have expressed interest in me resuming them again. So I thought that the best place to start would be back at the beginning. So here we go....
Week 1: Tips For Better Photos
Most everyone has a camera. And nearly everyone with a camera really enjoys taking photos. But let's face it, most of the images that are taken never come out the way we thought they would. There are few things that can be done to assure you that your photos will have a better than average chance of not ending up in the trash or being deleated from your computer.
Tip #1) This is a really easy one. Get intimate with your camera. Seriously, get to know your camera. Where are all the buttons? What do all of these buttons do? Find out what bells and whistles your camera has. You bought this camera for a reason, whether it was for the ease of a point and shoot or one with more manual features to allow you to be more creative. The best way to get to know your camera is to read your camera's manual! You will never know what your camera's is truely cabaple of if you don't read the manual. (well I guess you could, but it would be with alot of trial and error and alot of time) Don't get me wrong, you don't have to read the manual in order to just point and shoot. But you will never know how to use all the unique features that your camera has. Reading the manual will not only help you to enjoy using your camera more, it will also enable you to take better photos. When using a point and shoot camera, I have found that the automatic settings are not always the best choice. There are so many things that can confuse your camera's automatic settings and end up affecting your photos. Things such as backlighting, a subject that is moving and the different types of lighting that you may be in and don't even realize it because our eyes will automatically adjust accordingly to such lighting.
Now that you have at least glanced through you camera's manual, get your camera out and take some photos to see how your camera behaves in different situations. Take photos of something close up and then something far away. Take photos inside in low lighting (with and without a flash) and then outside in the sunshine as well as in the shade (again with and without a flash). Speaking of flashes, one of the first things you should know about your camera is how to turn your flash on AND off. Alot of cameras will automatically control the flash for you, but you may not need to use it at that time. This comes back to the fact that automatic settings may not always be the right or best choice! Now I hope that when you take these trial photos, you will try out at least some of the fancy bells and whistles that your camera came with. This is the time to learn how to use these settings. That way when you go to take the real important photos of the memories that you are trying to capture, you will be more familiar with both what your camera can do and what you can do with your camera. Have fun!
Don't forget to come back for next week for How To Take Better Photos~Tip #2: deciding the best Image Resolution to use for your photos. And if anyone has any questions or ideas of what they would like to learn that will help you take better photos, feel free to email me or comment back to this blog.
Also, I have had a few people email me to let me know that they are interested in a photo workshop. This would be an in person workshop to take place here in my studio and then later going around town to try out what you learn. I need some more people to be interested in this in order for me to do the workshop. So if you are interested or know someone that is or would be, please email me or comment back to the blog to let me know so that I can set up the date and time.
And last but not least... remember that next Friday, April 18th is our Open House here at the studio and you are all invited! There will be some fantastic Give Aways that you won't want to miss out on. So plan on coming by between 5 and 9, friends, family and kids are welcome as well.
