Photos and Photo Tips by Kathy McGraw

Photography is fun. Everywhere we look there is something to photograph as in this avocado picture. I saw these sitting on an outside bar that had been rained on and liked the look of the patio cover reflecting in the water. Your "eye" is the most important thing in photography, seeing what is around you and then trying to capture it on film (digital mostly).

These avocados, the way they were lined up with the rain, is what caught my eye. Is this a professional photo, no, but it sure entertained me trying to get different shots. Some I have the avocados in focus, others have the reflection. The one thing digital photography is good for is that we can take as many pictures as we want without the expense of developing, so if they don't turn out, or we can't find a use for them, we can just delete them. I had fun, and that is what photography is...fun.

Experimenting with the different setting on your camera, reading the manual, and just having fun will often produce the kinds of pictures you like. Photography is like anything else, the more you do it, the better you become. And don't think that some of the simplest pictures don't have a use. Look at Flickr, or look at the web articles that need graphics. Some of the pictures are of things you see everyday and didn't think to photograph yourself.

Most cameras will let you change the size of the pictures you're going to take. They have web sized, thumbnails, and print sizes that you can change before you even take the picture. If you don't change the size in the camera then you can change it in a photo editing program.

Large photos take up too much space, and many photo editing programs have a hard time working on large photos and will ask you to make them smaller, at least to the size of 2000x......which is easy. You just go to re-size and change the highest number, however you cannot change the dpi (dots per inch...which is how the picture is formed). For the web 72 dpi's is a good size resolution for a photo. This helps a webpage load faster yet still gives a decent photo. A web sized photo is NOT print quality! The recommended dpi's for a print quality photo is 300. Anyone that uses a print on demand program like Zazzle will want to make sure the photos are the right dpi.

Here are the basic sizes for web photos for different screens:

1) Small Web size (perfect for a good sized photo on a web page) fits a 640x480 (all the pictures on this page are this size)
2) Medium Size- 800x600 this makes a pretty large photo on most pages
3) Large Size-1024x768 the size of most monitors
4) Thumbnails-used for indexing and profile pictures on Twitter, FB, and other sites. There is no set dimension for all sites so here is a link to give you some more info for Thumbnail Sizes

Experiment with your subject.....often the subject is more interesting if you try to fill the frame (the camera screen) like my stairs photo. You might have to move a bit to get the subject you want to fill up the frame. Moving back some or forward will help you, but don't just use the zoom. Often when we depend on the zoom the camera will have some shake to it unless it is on a tripod. It's better to move yourself if you can.

Most beginners try to get everything into the picture....be selective, and also try photographing at different angles- take the picture from above it, below it, or to the side. Again, experiment to see what effect you like best.

Want Good Photos? Your Photos are only as good as you are! The most important thing to taking good pictures is to "see" them. Everywhere are good subjects, keep your camera handy so when you see something you can take the photo. The more photos you take, the more you will learn what you like and what you don't.

I like to just play sometimes, and capture the fun of my subject rather than worry about the technical aspects. I will take the picture and sometimes I will edit and play with it like the Boy with Goggles Photo. That one had a new background painted on...and he only had one eye of the goggle so another one was cloned on. This was one of my first attempts 7 years ago, and now I can see all the mistakes but I still like the photo for the fun of it.

Lighting is said to be the most important thing in photography, since photography is really just a way to write with light. Natural light is one of the most beautiful ways to capture your subject. There are also 2 magical hours for getting beautiful coloring in your photos, and that is the first hour of sunrise and the last hour before sunset.

Below are a couple photos that if you look closely you can see the shadows, and tell where the light was coming from. Taking photos of people during these hours you would want to look and see the direction of the shadows.