How To Take Great Photos

By Paul Harmer

If you are thinking of taking a photo especially for your bag, personalised album or canvas print here are some useful tips:

1) Always shoot on your camera's maximum quality setting (for digital cameras) unless you're really running out of space on your memory card. This gives you much more flexibility later on, because you can always make a large image small but you can't make a small image large!

2) Think about props, location or interesting features - if it's of children, have you got any costumes available? Crowns, tiaras, swords! All helps to keep the subject happy and interested for the shot.

3) If your camera has a zoom control use it! If you're photographing people, either move in closer to them or zoom in. Every time you crop a digital image, some information is lost, so try and get the subject to fill the frame to start with!

4) Press the shutter button slowly but firmly. Too quick a push and you might get camera-shake.

5) Try using the flash in daylight! It can really help in filling in harsh and unflattering shadows.

6) Experiment with shooting into the sun! This can be risky, but with the sun behind someone, there's no glare in their eyes and the light on their face is very soft. You also get a lovely halo-effect around their head, but you might need to use your camera's flash.

7) Think about whether your picture should be portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal). Bags for example are landscape, the clutch make up bag and pouch purse are conveniently both ways. The small photo album it landscape, the other book covers are portrait. Canvas prints can be any way you like - how much wall hanging space have you got?

8) If you're photographing in low-light conditions, try a mini-tripod and turn your camera's flash off. You can even rest the camera on a wall or car roof to get that perfect sunset shot, but hand-holding it will almost always end in a blurred image!

9) Try and compose every picture using simple rules of composition - either divide the picture into thirds or halves. So if you're photographing a person, try and keep their head in the top third of the frame and their body in the other two-thirds. This looks much better than just sticking their head in the middle of the picture!

Words Paul Harmer - professional photographer www.paulharmer.com

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