10 Tips on How to Take Great Pictures

This week, I learned that there is more to just snapping a picture and hoping it comes out okay.  After reading "Top 10 Tips to Taking Great Pictures", I did not have any recent food pictures to share with you so I had fun looking through my old honeymoon pictures.  Here are Kodak's 10 tips:

1.  Get down on their level. If you are taking a picture of a dog, kneel down and take the picture. For this example, I used my dog, Coco.  

Not a good example.  This picture is of Coco as I was looking down at him while he was begging for food.

Isn't Coco quite the model?

2.  Use plain background. Before you take a picture, check the area around and make sure it is not too cluttered. It is also important to make sure nothing is sticking out of someone's head.

The bird just blends in the background.

This would have been a good picture if I noticed the tree coming out of my son's head.

3.  Use Flash outdoors.  I had no idea!  Using Flash outdoors lightens dark shadows under the eyes and nose in bright overhead sunlight and brightens up faces on cloudy days and helps them stand out from the background.

4.  Move in close to what you are taking a picture of to eliminate background distractions.

Hmm...Decisions, decisions!

Flower in the Rainforest

5.  Take some vertical pictures.

6.  Lock the focus to create a sharp picture of something that is off center.

Arenal Volcano

7.  Move in from the middle.  In photography, there is something know as the Rule of Thirds which means to imagine a tic-tac-toe grid in your camera’s viewfinder.  By placing what you want to take a picture of at one of those intersections off center, you create a balanced photo that can be naturally viewed by our eyes.  The Digital Photography School blog has some good examples of Rule of Thirds.  

West Coast of Costa Rica

8.  Know your Flash’s range. Pictures taken beyond the maximum Flash range, which is ten feet (about four steps away) for most cameras, will be too dark. 

9.  Watch the light. Great light = Great pictures. If you are taking pictures of people, choose the soft lighting of a cloudy day and avoid overhead sunlight because it casts unwanted shadows across the face.  Early or late daylight is the best for scenic pictures. The best example I can find was a picture I took of the Hot Springs at the Tabacon Resort in Costa Rica.

Hot Springs at the Tabacon

10.  Be a picture Director by adding props, rearranging things, and try different viewpoints.

The Big Game is next weekend!  Who are you rooting for?  Vote below!  I would also love to hear what your favorite Super Bowl dishes are.  Crispy Barbeque Chicken Wings are definitely on the menu for next week!  Come on back to find out what else!