How to
Take Great Digital Pictures
Plan
Your Picture
First off, there are record
shots to record the event and then there are great pictures. Decide which you
want to shoot and then follow these hints to get that great shot. Plan your
picture before you shoot it. How do you want it to look? Use Hands to frame
picture first to choose what you want. This helps to narrow the picture down
until your eye starts seeing this frame automatically. The nice thing about
Digital cameras is that you can shoot and shoot and not incur any costs, so
take lots of pictures. Don’t forget you can review the picture after you take
it, to see if you got the right shot. If not, just take another, right then
and there!
Be aware of where the center of interest is, and follow
your eye to it. It should be going into the picture not leading out of the
picture.
Another
hint to get a pleasing picture is to follow the Rule of Thirds. Divide the
picture into thirds, horizontally and vertically, and there the lines
intersect is where to place the Center of Interest. Try it and see. Putting
the horizon in the middle is usually less pleasing than placing it in the
lower or upper third.
In our photo club, Bright
Colors always drew your eyes into the picture. We used to tease everyone about
who was going to bring a red jacket to be the model in all the pictures. Of
course, the red-jacketed person was appropriately placed at the intersection
of the Rule of Thirds.
For some reason, odd
numbers of items, such as one or three are more pleasing than an even number
of items. Try taking a picture with an even number and then with an odd
number and see which you like better. Don’t forget – you can take lots of
pictures since you are not wasting film.
Try not to cut off heads,
feet or tops of your center of interest unless you deliberately want to.
One very serious advantage
to Digital photography is that the computer is your darkroom and you can
manipulate anything out of the picture. We used to say we needed that
“Telephone Pole Filter”
(grin) to get the telephone pole out of the picture, but with the computer
you can just take it out, after the fact.
Always
carry your camera. George had his camera with him at Marvac when a car ran
into Marvac electronics store, so he was able to take great photo journalism
pictures, which also helped the company.
Try to take pictures of interesting places. Make it a
new family outing to find new photo opportunities. Get the family involved in
taking pictures. Cameras are getting fairly inexpensive, so everyone can now
have them! Enjoy!
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