photo tips from a complete amateur

First, let me qualify the rest of the post by saying, I know nothing about photography.

Looking at great blogs with amazing pictures, like this one or this one, and reading various tips all over the web have been my photography class.

So along the way, I've picked up my own little tips that I'll share here.

1. Love your subject. This is easy for me. Most of the pictures I take are of my kids. And I take LOTS of them. The more you take, the better chance you have of getting a good one. (Of course, this tip makes it harder to throw out the bad ones, too. Which might be why I have like 30,000 pictures of my kids on my computer from the last 5 years.)


2. Zoom In. This might be my own personal preference, but some of my favorite shots are the close ones. Sometimes, you don't even need a face in there. There's something about chubby little hands drawing with chalk that makes you smile. This picture was taken with my zoom lens from miles away.


Then there's this one where I was a little too close. Still a neat pic, that I didn't mean to take. Sometimes, just by cropping in close during editing, you can create a great picture. If you don't like it, you can always change it back. (Yay! digital cameras.)


3. Make them big. I guess this one is for bloggers, but I think the bigger pictures draw your eye in. And it's really easy to do. The way I do it is upload my pictures to Flickr. Then click on the share button. The drop down menu has a choice 'Grab the HTML/BBC code' Choose that. You can also choose the size of the photo you want. Mine is medium. After that, just copy and paste right where you write your text. No uploading pictures to blogger.


4. Edit your pictures. This is something I am REALLY unqualified to talk about. I have no idea what I'm doing in this area. But it's fun to do and you should give it a try. Of course, the free photo editor I use is about to disappear (picnik) so I may try this one sometime soon. Anyway, editing can make your picture look old, brighten the colors, change it to a black and white, and improve the quality of a bad picture. If nothing else, I usually 'auto fix' my photos. I use my own eye as judge. If I think it looks better, I keep it, if not, I change it back.


5. Rule of thirds. I think one of the most important 'official' photography rules is this one. Basically, your subject should be off center. You can also achieve this by cropping your photo.


6. Don't use the flash. This might need to be rule number one. And it will take some exploring to get used to. Sometimes pictures will be blurry, or low light. But there's ways around this using ISO and aperture. A good tutorial is here. My best no flash pictures are always outside, which may be why I show us outside a lot. Pinterest makes it easy to find great photo tips. This board is full of great links.
And I'll just confess right now, I used full on auto mode in some of these snow pictures. I could not get the lighting right at all, and as fast as the snow melted, I didn't want to risk not getting any good images. I just needed that security in order to relax and try some other settings. So if you want, take your AUTO pictures first, then branch out and try something different. You might be surprised at what you get.


7. Change your position. Sometimes you need to get down on their level...with kids this could mean laying on the floor. Sometimes you need to stand on a chair. I really don't do this rule too much, but I think it's a good one that will help change your perspective.


8. Be natural. That means no, 'smile, and say cheese'. The real life pictures are interesting ones that pull you in, make you feel like you were there, make you want to know more. Again, these take some getting used to. It's ingrained in us to tell them to smile, but we have many emotions that are worth capturing. Kids are real and will show them.


Thanks for letting me share these tips. If anything, it will be a great reference tool for me! Most of the pictures in this post are from our perfect snow day last week...three inches then 80 degrees a few days later. We roped up daddy and the kids had a blast, even without the hills.