Photography Tips & Tutorials "Make Your Photographs Better"

Hope many of you must have gone through your camera manual and got hold of some of the things mentioned there in. Not to worry, if you have started you will definitely finish and get accustomed to all the buttons, dials and their functions soon. There is a saying “Rome was not built in a day” but when it was built it was amazing.

In this article I will not talk about one step higher of knowing your camera instead will tell how one can make your photographs better.

You can keep your camera on Auto Mode and click photographs. There is nothing to feel guilty about.

There are a few basic rules, which if one sticks to, can make the photograph much better.

Making A Photograph can also be termed in technical terms Composing A Photograph. Both these terms would be used in the article and both mean one and the same thing.

So how does one Make A Photograph?

Making a photograph is nothing but placement or arrangement of the elements/subjects in your frame. Composition plays a vital role in making your photograph look different and better from many.

Rule One: Rule of Thirds

The most important or the thumb rule which can make your photograph is ‘Rule of Thirds’. Quite simple divide your frame in 3 equal parts vertically and horizontally. So what one gets is a grid which has 9 sections.

The rule says your key or the main subject/element should be placed at the intersecting point of the vertical and horizontal lines.

Simpler to say is that the main subject/element should be not in centre of the frame, it should always be off-centre.

The rule is applicable for both horizontal and vertical photographs.

Grid Showing 9 sections. Intersecting points are marked with Green

Let’s look for some of the examples

Horizontal Photograph showing placement of tree on the intersecting point.

Vertical Photograph showing placement of horse on the intersecting point

Moon in Center of the frame is distracting to eye

Moon is Off-Center of the frame, attracts eye.

Be Straight

The other most important rule of composting a photograph is to ‘Be Straight’. The lines in frame of your photograph should always be straight.

If there is horizon appearing in your photograph, make sure that it is straight and not bending or inclined to any angle. Let’s understand this with some examples.