Instant Tips for Better Photos

Improving your photography skills isn’t complicated. It is a matter of practice makes perfect. And in the digital age, the learning curve is that much smaller. Here are a few pointers that have helped me to improve my photography. Keep in mind that I have a regular point-and-shoot camera. I don’t have any fancy lenses or flashes. I use an Olympus Camedia C-5060. Eventually, I’d like to invest in better equipment, but I can still take good photos right now. And you can too.

Before I begin, I'd like to add a little disclaimer. This tutorial will not cover any technical aspects of cameras, it is simply a list of things to think about as you are taking photographs. If you'd like something deeper, please read your camera's manual.

1. Take a billion photos. I take as many as possible. When I went to Disneyland for 5 days this year, I took about 260 keeper photos. (That doesn’t include the ones that I instantly deleted because it was blurry or I missed my moving (or non-moving target.) My traveling companions took about 50 each. Just my sheer numbers gave me a higher likelihood of a good shot. Plus, the more photos you take, the more practice you get. For example, I took about 15 shots of my 4 year old running around in the water. I only got 2 that I absolutely love because they just capture her enthusiasm.

2. Before you start shooting, ask yourself what you are trying to capture in the photo. Do you want to get the happy face? Or is the outfit more important? Are you trying to get a shot that includes the environment or is the person your focus? Once you decide on your focus, make that the focus. Sometimes we are unhappy with our photography because we have a full-body shot with a distracting outfit when we really wanted to focus in on the cute smile. This often requires you to get closer to your subject or at least use the zoom feature. If you want to capture the entire person with the happy face, don’t hesitate to take some full-body shots and another couple focused on the face. Again, see #1.

In these shots, I'm trying to capture happiness not the scene at the park. So I zoomed in on their faces only.

Here I was trying to capture those hilarious goggles. So I zoomed in on the face, while still maintaining a bit of the water in the background so everyone would know we were in the pool and that my brother isn't really a lizard of some sort.



3. Don’t limit yourself to one angle. My neighbors often see me lying on the ground with my camera trying to get a different shot. (I figure they already think I’m crazy because I have 4 children ages 6 and under, so I might as well cement that idea by lying prostrate on the sidewalk!) If you want to take a photo of that beautiful rose, don’t just settle for the top-down shot, try shooting a profile or try shooting up. Or, for those fun shots with energy, try tilting your camera just slightly.

Try a profile. Like I did here.

Or, here I am lying on the ground, tilting my camera for the artsy shot.


On this one, I am under my 2 year old, looking up.
4. Sometimes less is more. Try shooting just a part of an object like I did below for my daughter’s cakes. This technique doesn’t work for everything, but sometimes just a chunk of your subject is a neat photo.

5. Sometimes a frame is nice. Step back and capture that tree on the side or take a photo between arches and see what happens. Here I framed my 10 month old with the railings of the stairs.

6. Lighting is important. My favorite shots are usually outside. However, I know that there are times that I must make do with an imperfect environment. But I can make the most of my situation. For example, I know that when I take a photo inside, facing a window, the subject will look dark so I try to position myself so that my back is to the window. I also know that upstairs in my daughter’s room is a great window with awesome light so I often shoot there. My friend set up a photo shoot in her garage with an old white sheet. The results were amazing. Use what you have.

7. Think in thirds. When you are composing your shot, mentally divide the possible photo into three equal sections. Instead of always taking dead-center photos, try placing your focal point in one of your three sections. See below for examples.

For this shot, I wanted to capture my son's hesitancy in going in the splash park. I did that by putting him in the far right with the water in front of him.

8. Before you click, look for any very distracting elements like a pole shooting up from someone’s head or a dead cockroach in the foreground. You get the idea.

My husband's office was filled with distracting paper stacks so to avoid them, I tried to get a bit closer. This wasn't an ideal environment, but the photo turned out pretty well considering two out of four children aren't looking at the camera.

8. Keep your camera accessible. And take that shot when you think of it, you may not get another chance. My baby only wore these glasses for about 17.6 seconds. Luckily, I got my camera in time!

9. Details, details, details. Don’t forget to capture those small daily details. You know, the pile of laundry, the little Matchbox cars lined up in a traffic jam, the makeup on the sink. (Yes, I did get some photos of those stacks of paper in my husband's office.) Those small details often make the best pages. Recently, I was looking at my 2-year-old son’s small shoes and trying to imagine them in 15 years. I took a photo of his shoes (again, the neighbors thought I was crazy) and I plan to scrap that photo with journaling about him growing up.

Drawing with chalk is a daily event in our house, here I got my daughter's hand as she went about her creative business.

10. Remember that sometimes someone’s terrible photo is someone else’s treasure. If you do take a bad shot, make the most of it and scrap it anyway. Sometimes those shots that break all the rules (as in heads cut off or bizarre backgrounds) turn out to be my favorites and my creative muscles are strengthened as I scrap them.

You're going to get sick of seeing this layout, but if you'll look closely, you'll see that my daughter's head is completely cut off. By the rules, this shot should be tossed, but I loved it anyway because her smile and legs are still visible so I stuck a hat on her, gave her some wings and used it anyway. This is still one of my favorite creations.

Of course, this list is far from exhaustive, but it certainly gives you a starting point. If you apply any of these tips, your photography will instantly improve. And remember, with practice, you’ll start to apply these tips automatically and it won’t take so much thought. Good luck and happy shooting!