In part one of my tips for taking better photos series we learned about light, composition, the rule of thirds, viewpoints & backgrounds. Here are five more top tips for improving your photos & taking them to the next level!
Missed the first blog? You can catch it here.
6. Connect with your subject
Make eye contact, engage & listen to the person you’re photographing. Chat with them & build a rapport. You’ll get more natural & relaxed photos.
If you are photographing children, move down to their level, sit or lie on the floor so that you can make eye contact with them.
7. Take control
Are you photographing a group? Your family, the kids, some friends or your work colleagues? Or perhaps a portrait of one person. Take control & become a director, not a taker. A director takes charge of creating the photo, a taker simply snaps what is in front of them.
I often use the phrase, “I don’t take a photo, I make a photo”.
Think about tips one & five in the first blog. Choose the location for the light & the background, not because that’s where your subject is sitting. If the light is bad, move your subject to good light. If they are in front of a window with light behind them, ask them to turn & face the window.
Is the background behind your subject distracting? Move the distraction, move your subject or change your viewpoint to hide the distraction.
Take control of your photo taking & watch the improvements.
8. Patience
Good things come to those who wait!
Watch for the perfect light.
Wait for your subject to move slightly.
Or for a bird to fly out of (or maybe into) a shot.
Wait for the pinnacle moment.
Patience is paramount to getting the best shot. It’s always worth the wait!
9. Rules are made to be broken
No explanation is needed.
10. Back up & print!
My final tip isn’t about taking a photo but what you do with them after you’ve taken them.
Where do you store your photos?
What happens to your photos if you lose your phone or your laptop breaks? Do you have them saved elsewhere? Your child’s first birthday, your wedding & honeymoon. Family members who are sadly no longer with you. How valuable are these photos to you? What would happen if you were to lose them?
Back them up! Use a hard drive, the Cloud, a USB drive, DVD. Make sure they are safe & secure somewhere & not only on your phone.
You may also want to think about printing your
Many experts in the photographic industry say that the safest way to ensure that you can still look at your photos in years to come is to print them. Prints can last for 100’s years. Most families have a box or album of photos of previous generations. Imagine if your great, great-grandkids had no way of looking at photos of you.
It doesn’t matter how you back up your photos, as long as they are stored somewhere safe!
Putting into practice…
I hope this post with some more top tips for improving your photos has been useful. Now’s the time to put these tips & those from the first post into practice.
Let me know how you get on!
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