Brett's Photo Tips

For over a year now my passion has been to take my photography to the next level. I'm not a professional but I've learned a lot so I figured I pass along some basic tips.

1. Avoid Clutter In The Frame: By far the most common mistake the average picture-taker makes is that he or she will have too much going on in the shot. Whether the subject of your picture is a person, place, or thing, that should be the only thing that draws your eye in the photo. Either zoom in with the camera, or zoom in with your feet.
2. Take Lots of Pictures: Taking more pictures doesn't cost you anything with digital, so if you want better ones take more of them. You'll benefit from the experience and increase the odds that you'll get a good one. How many times have you snapped a picture of someone and you happen to catch an awkward expression on his face?
3. Throw Most of Them Away: The greatest blessing of digital photography is the amateur's greatest curse because she will keep both the bad and the good. In photography quality always trumps quantity. If you took 10 shots of the same thing, delete 9 of them. The other 9 only serve to dilute the value of the best one. And if you only have one shot and it sucks you should still delete it, unless it is of a special occasion and a bad picture is truly better than no picture.
4. Avoid Centering Your Subject: If you take a landscape picture of a person, your natural inclination is to center that subject in the frame. You'll have a more compelling picture if the subject is off center (unless you've filled the frame with it). If the subject is looking to the right, put him over to the left. If the subject is in motion, give her space in the direction she is headed.
5. Get Down: Most people take pictures from a standing position, which isn't ideal if the subject is shorter than you. When photographing children, get down on their level to get a more intimate perspective.
6. Size Matters: Compact cameras are highly portable, but the sensors are very small by necessity. Smaller sensors gather less light making for pictures with less sharpness and more noise. An entry level SLR has a much larger sensor and better optical components than any point and shoot camera. If an SLR doesn't fit your budget then look for a deal on Craigslist because last year's SLR is still better than this year's point and shoot.
7. Organize Your Pictures: Don't just put them into folders, get software that specializes in photo organization. I'm a fan of Aperture but you can also use iPhoto, Lightroom or Picasa. Keep in mind these apps aren't any better than folders unless you use their features for adding metadata. For every shot that I keep I give it a title, keywords, and a rating.
8. Back Them Up: Your hard drive will fail, it's a matter of when not if. You could lose all of your photos, or you could end up spending a lot of money to recover them from the failed drive. I use Time Machine to back up locally and a cloud storage service in case of fire or theft.