So, you're strolling through your Facebook feed and you happen upon "SuzieQ's" photos of her kids in the swimming pool at their house. As you look through picture after picture of seemingly perfect perfection you begin to feel that little green monster of envy creep back into your mind. "Why do SuzieQ's pictures always seem to look better than yours? And, how does she do it?"
True, some people simply have a knack for telling a beautiful story with a single photograph, but I'm going to let you in on a little secret; virtually none of those photos came straight off a camera and onto the web without serious thought and planning being put into the image BEFORE it was taken and without some form of re-touching AFTER it was taken. The idea that great pictures just happen is a bit misguided. There are moments where the photographer just happened to be in the right spot at the right time, but those incidences are few and far between. Most photographers put serious thought into an image long before they ever put the view finder to their eye (and some super-skilled photographers are even gifted enough to simply point the camera in the right direction from hip-height and wind up with an excellent shot).
The neat thing about photography, though, is that literally anyone can do it, and anyone can learn a few tips to improve the skills they have already acquired.
For starters you need nothing more than a digital camera with a decent resolution. Don't know what that means? If you can pull up some stats on the camera you will be working with, you want to look for how many megapixels your camera has. Megapixels are the individual dots that your photo is made up of and while a higher number of megapixels doesn't necessarily represent a higher quality image, it's a good place to start. (For more serious and in-depth reading on the subject read http://photography.tutsplus.com/articles/an-in-depth-look-at-megapixels-and-resolution--photo-8914.) Most cameras with 8 megapixels or higher will put out a decent enough image for computer screens and small prints up to 5x7.
Next, you want to determine what type of camera you're working with if you don't already know. Are you using a point-and-shoot or a phone camera that does all the adjustments for you? Are you using a professional-type DSLR like the Canon Rebel? Or, are you using a hybrid of the two that offers a few customizable settings but functions primarily with automatic settings such a Nikon Coolpix?
No matter what you're working with, set it to the green AUTO setting and let's go from there.
Before snapping a picture, take a moment to look through the viewfinder (or sneak a peek on the back display). Every picture has a story to tell and it's important that you figure out what that story will be before you get started. Take for example these two pictures of my daughter. These were taken at the Montgomery Zoo in June of 2015 while we were preparing to feed the giraffes. The picture on the left is a pretty typical candid shot where the photographer is looking down on the child, there are feet in the frame, it's not cropped well, etc. It's blah and it really doesn't say much about what was going on.
After my lackadaisical moment of forgetting to be a photographer instead of a mom, I snapped back into picture mode and made the image tell more of a story. I instructed my daughter to hold the cup of alfalfa up to the camera, I zoomed in just slightly so my husband's feet could no longer be seen, and *snap*! Instantly, the photo is much better and says, "We're going to feed some critters!" It's not a professional image by any means, and I could have done more to ensure I had a truly clean background, but munchkin was antsy and it's certainly an improvement over what I had earlier.
*TIP*: Pay attention to your background. What is behind your subject that could potentially interfere with the image?
*TIP*: What story are you hoping your picture(s) will tell? Keep that in mind the entire time you're shooting.
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