Photography: A Great Creative Outlet For Personal Expression

For those who are a novice in photography, learning how to properly take pictures can seem quite intimidating. People who are new to photography may not know where to begin because of the extensive amount of information available on learning photography. The following article will help you better understand some of the basics of photography.

You can get a better picture by getting close to your subject. Getting in nice and tight allows your subject to fill the frame, which minimizes distractions. It lets you focus on any facial expressions, and that can be a very critical element to portrait photography. If your subject is far away, you are likely to miss the small important details.



Balance Feature

Practice shooting under a variety of lighting conditions, from different angles, and with each of the built-in features included in your camera. You do not need an original object to take a high-quality picture. A good photograph entails making a photo of something unoriginal interesting, because of their creative skills and talent. Find your style through experimentation.

Experiment with the white balance feature manually. While taking shots indoors, sometimes you get a yellowish color due to the light bulbs. By changing the white balance feature on your camera this will be reduced and you will notice a whole different quality to your photographs. It most definitely will create a more professional look to your photos.




When you are traveling, take small snapshots of intricate details. While they may not seem that important at the time, when you get home and start to reflect on your trip, having these smaller memories will be great. Every time something strikes your fancy, pull out your camera and photograph it.

Remain completely immobile when it’s time to click the shutter to get that ultimate photograph. Even a very slight movement can cause motion blur and ruin that perfect shot. Just before hitting the button, take a moment to steady the camera and take a deep breath.

You will have to play with ISO, aperture and shutter speed. All of these features will work to determine the exposure for your picture. Underexposed or overexposed pictures should be avoided, unless that’s the shot you are going for. Do a little experimenting and you will soon understand the relationship between these three features.

There isn’t a secret to being an excellent photographer. Do not stop taking pictures. With each image that you capture, you gain experience. With digital formats, you don’t need to develop your own pictures, nor do you have to keep them all. You will get better and better as time goes on, taking shots of everything and judging them later on to evaluate how you might have gotten a better photo.


Regardless of whether you are pursuing photography as a hobby or career, good composition is the key to taking high quality photos. If composition is lacking, your photograph as a whole will feel as if it’s lacking something. Try educating yourself about proper composition and your photography skills will soon improve.




To take more unique pictures, try using limitation. One way is to limit your shots for a whole day to subjects that express a single idea. From one viewpoint, shoot around 100 photos. This can help you to be more creative by forcing you to step outside of your comfort zone.

Read the manual that comes with your camera until you truly feel that you have a mastery for all the settings it has. The manual is often a big, thick bulky brick. They are usually thrown away or stored somewhere and forgotten. Instead of throwing it out, take the time to read it. Reading the manual will make you a better picture taker and help you avoid making silly mistakes.

When you are photographing a landscape, your photos need to be composed with three distinct and important planes of focus. A good landscape has interesting content in the foreground, in the background, and also in between the two, in the mid-ground. Most art uses these three factors when producing any quality work. Photography is no different.


Use natural lighting when possible because it isn’t harsh. You will not want the glare of the sun, so choose outdoor lighting that is lower, either first thing in the morning or after the sun has dropped in the afternoons. When it is too bright, or the sun is high in the sky, it casts unnatural shadows and your subjects will squint into the camera because the light is so strong. Consider a position where your subject has the sun shining on them from the side.

Most cameras only allow you to focus on either highlights or shadows in one picture. However, with new digital technology you can take two photos of the same subject, each with different exposures, and stitch them together into a perfectly exposed photo.


Take a lot of experimental photographs when you are working with a new subject or background. Every location presents a photographer with a new challenge, and snapping practice shots can help you to achieve a perfect finial photograph. Changes in lighting will give you a chance to experiment with a variety of natural and artificial light.

Try to avoid setting your digital camera to the lowest settings in order to fit more photos on the camera because you will sacrifice print quality. You should only apply the lowest settings if you are confident that the images will only be shown on a computer display.


Make sure you take the time to learn how the ISO feature on your camera works. The higher the ISO value, the wider the field of view, which translates into grainy prints. Shots don’t look good with the grain unless that’s the look you are going for.

Try creating a silhouette in your photo. There are other ways beside the sun to create a type of silhouette. Any background that produces bright light will display the subject in silhouette, providing the subject is not as bright as the background. To create a perfect silhouette, you can either use a off camera flash in back of the subject or the subject can be placed by a window that is bright. Be sure, however, that the resulting outline gives a flattering depiction of the subject.

Vary the angle at which you take shots to increase their artistic value. There’s nothing unique about snapping a picture from a straight-on angle. Attempt to gain different perspectives by getting over or below your subject. Other interesting alternatives are framing your subject from a diagonal or sideways view.

Shutter Speeds


Experiment with your camera’s shutter speeds. Although the quickest shutter speeds are used to freeze a moment in time, consider what is possible with slower shutter speeds, such as 1/30. Did you see the person riding a bike who was going past at a fast pace? This will make the bicyclist in clear focus, while the background is blurred horizontally, showing speed and motion.

Consider getting a case for your camera, as well as for other equipment you carry with you when taking pictures. Often, damage or destruction of equipment could have easily been avoided if the owner had their equipment secured in a protective case. A variety of cases will be available in camera or electronics stores.

This article probably helped you sort the whirlwind of photography information at your disposal into something a bit more coherent. You could potentially become quite successful at photography if you keep all of these things in mind.

Set your camera’s white balance manually. Most cameras will automatically choose white balance, but for better control over your images, you should set this manually. You can easily remove the yellowish tint that is so prevalent when shooting in artificial lighting, and thus control the overall effect of your images.

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