6 Free, Simple Photography Tips for Awesome Images

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Update Feb 11, 2021 

 

Photography has become an indispensable part of blogging, and to a great extent, our lives. From selfies to shopping to photos of our pets and kids. Social media has made this a must. For the average person, a cell phone is more than enough to capture good images when used correctly.

 How many times though have you looked at your feed and seen god-awful blurry pictures? Your friends may be giving you a thumbs up while cringing on the inside. Here are some helpful tips to get better images, either for your personal use or for your blog.

  6 Free, Simple Photography Tips For Awesome Images 

 

Light:

 Lighting is one of the most important components of photography. If you’re taking a photograph of a person, try and move them to a place with natural lightings, like maybe close to the window, but not in the direct sunlight.

 You might need to turn on a lamp for light. The more broad the light source, the softer the light. This will cut down on shadows. If it’s indoors or darker, you can use the flash if the subject is close. If you’re not sure, set it to auto.

Focus

 

 

If you’re using a cell phone to capture your image, don’t just click the shutter and assume it’s a good one. Focus on your subject’s eye for instance if it’s the person you’re photographing. Wait for the camera to focus, that is.. wait till you see the square.

 At this point, you can click the shutter. Your picture will be sharp and in focus. That by itself already makes it a better picture than most peoples. Holding your hand steady helps a lot with focus.

 

De-Clutter:

 How many times have you looked at a picture and become distracted by something else in the image? You’re supposed to be looking at a person, but all you can see are the dirty towels hanging in the background, the leftovers on the kitchen table, and the dog peeing on a fire hydrant. These distractions take away from the image and don’t convey the mood. Take the extra minute to make sure you have no distractions.

 

Composition:

 I don’t know if it’s because I’m married to a photographer, but one of my pet peeves is seeing people’s extremities being cut off in an image. It really ruins it. There are full-length images, 3/4 length, half-length, and close-up. If you’re taking a picture of a person, please include their whole limbs.

 This includes the arms and fingers. The legs and feet. Most people have a tendency to put one foot in from of the other, giving an amputee effect to your image. Check for that before clicking. Nothing is more distracting to a viewer. Check the background too, a tree might be smack dab at the back of their head, move the subject slightly.

 

Angles:

 

 

It’s always a good idea to shoot from different angles and then choose your best shot. This l find especially true when taking images of food. Some food looks great at a high level. A lot l find you need to stand up and take from above.

 You ever notice at a wedding how the photographer will climb stairs to take pictures or even sit on the floor, kneel, etc? just to get the best shot? When l started assisting my husband with weddings, l learned this quickly. It makes your images more interesting. Go ahead and experiment.

 

Editing:

 Photoshop or Lightroom is the most popular editing tools for photographers. There are, however,  free online editing tools available to take your pictures to the next level. One popular one is PicMonkey. You just upload your picture and you can adjust the exposure, sharpen or crop your images for instance.

 Other popular editors include Picfull’s free version and Fotor.  They also come with filters similar to ones on Instagram, so you have plenty to choose from.

 The most important thing to remember is to take the extra minute and fix things before snapping the photo. Editing will only enhance that. A bad picture to edit can cost you hours of time.

 In the days before digital photography, you had no choice but to take your chances with the film. Nowadays, there is really little excuse for not taking decent photos. You can always take multiple images and choose the best one.

 For most casual photography, the cell phone is more than adequate. I still use an old iPhone 4 when l can’t be bothered to carry a real camera. For the average blogger, you might need to step it up a bit. These are my recommendations.

 

Point and Shoot:

 

This is the newer version of one l was using a long time ago. Good then, good now.

The Canon PowerShot G7 is a pretty good camera. It has a decent zoom lens and aperture of f/1.8, Built-in Wi-Fi freeing you of cables to share images, 1080HD video and with 20.1 megapixels, you’ll get very good shots. It does have its limitations, range, slowness, etc, that’s why they are not used professionally.

 For serious hobbyists and photographers that need more (I will leave out pros here), l would definitely recommend stepping up to a DSLR (Digital Single-lens Reflective. A really good one, and the one l currently use is the Nikon D5300.

 I love it because it is lightweight, has 24.2 megapixels for insane looking pictures. Sure there is the newer D5600, but this rocks and you can get it at a great price now. It also has Wi-Fi capabilities. Your images look absolutely professional, it is lighter than most other DSLR cameras and the battery lasts a long time too.

 One other feature is the flip screen, perfect for selfies. Prior to this, l was using a Nikon d40x which although has been discontinued, l would still recommend buying a used one that you can find for less than $200 on eBay sometimes.

 

 

As for a good lens that will see you through most situations, a fine one is the Nikkor 18-55mm glass lens. It is versatile and more than likely all you would ever need. A good cheat would be a used Nikon D40X with a used GLASS lens (they never lose their value).

 

 

 

 

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There you have it! 6 free and simple photography tips for awesome images. By utilizing these tips, you should see a difference in the quality of your images.

 Please share this post if you liked it. Remember also that purchasing through any of these links does not cost you extra.mYou can also take the chance to subscribe to the blog because you don’t want to miss future helpful posts.

 Would you consider yourself a good photographer? Are you into more compact cameras or the bigger professional types?

 

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