78 Useful Photography Tips

Taking photographs shouldn’t be difficult.

Today’s cameras are marvels at point-and-click technology, that it is practically impossible to take a bad photograph.

But people do take bad photos, all the time.  In part, it’s because modern digital cameras offer so many options to the novice photographer that they get overwhelmed and make bad photographic decisions.Or maybe they just don’t know what all the features and buttons are.

For example, Web Watch was recently watching tourists attempt to take photographs of a fireworks show using a fancy digital camera with pop-up flash and giant lens.  Every shot they took fired the automatic flash; looking over their shoulder at their digital preview screen, we could see that they were only getting pictures of the backs of people’s heads and a nearby fence — all nicely illuminated by the flash.  Our point-and-click camera had the flash turned off, and our fireworks pictures turned out fine.

It’s all in knowing what to do with each photographic situation.

And that’s why Ivars Gravlejs has put together this LIST OF 78 USEFUL PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS, laying out in the most simplistic terms available for beginning photographers — and more importantly, with both good and bad examples — exactly what a good photographer should look for when composing and taking photos.

Some examples include:

• When taking a self-portrait in the mirror, turn off the flash
• Don’t take pictures when you’re drunk.  (Web Watch believes that this is related to improving the quality of the final picture, not that drunk picture taking is a bad idea)
• Remove the lens cap

The most important piece of advice is what Ivan says in his summary:

Once you decide to photograph, think carefully what you want to picture, do not forget about the composition and lightening, do not get upset, relax and concentrate on the subject.