I love taking pictures to hold on to memories and capture stories of our lives. But photography does not come easy for me. I need some photography tips to make it a little easier.
I wish I had more pictures of my family when we were younger. Memories fade and those experiences get lost.
I have very few pictures of myself when I was young. If there are any, they were probably taken by someone outside of my immediate family. As the youngest of 6 children with only 10 years difference between myself and my oldest sister, I don’t imagine my mom had a lot of time to think about pictures.
I like to think I am better than my mom was at taking pictures of my kids since I only have three. But as my kids were growing up and needed pictures of their younger selves for various school projects, we never seemed to have the right ones.
My hope is that I was so busy living in the moment with my kids, that pictures were not a priority!
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To this day, when I am out with friends or family, I often forget to take a picture and if I remember, it usually isn’t all that great or seems a little forced.
Especially now with my blog, I need pictures for everything.
Our kids have it figured out. They take pictures of everything and most of it gets put on social media. I’m not a huge fan of that, but they are creating memories of their happy moments in everyday life. There is something to be said for that.
I need to be better at taking and organizing pictures. I need some photography tips to make it a little easier.
So, I did a little research. You can google anything these days, so I googled the following:
- How to take pictures
- What to take pictures of
- How many pictures to take
- What to do with all of my pictures
- Creative things to do with pictures
This is what I found. I hope you can find a few photography tips to take away too!
How do you take pictures?
I take most of my pictures with my iPhone. I have a small digital camera, but unless I’m going on a very special occasion, it gets left at home. Most of us use our phones to take pictures, and with technology getting better and better all of the time, for most pictures that is enough.
Check out this article for a few photography tips to take good pictures on your iPhone from iMore.com.
Make sure you have proper lighting. Do not use the flash on your iPhone unless you have to. Natural lighting sources are the best.
Instead of fumbling with unlocking your phone and finding the app, you can just swipe up and use the camera from the control center. Such a time saver for those spontaneous pictures!
Use the “rule of thirds”. On the iPhone, you can go to Settings > Photos & Camera and enable the Grid switch. The grid is a 3×3 table, and the goal is to place your subjects along the lines of the grid. Who knew? I thought everything was supposed to be in the center, but I guess that gets a little boring.
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For your action shots, the iPhone has a Burst option. Hold down the shutter (volume up) button and it will take continuous photos until you lift your finger. You then choose which ones you want to keep, and the rest will be deleted. Gives you a better chance of getting a great shot!
Keep your photos simple. I tend to take pictures and not always think about what is in the background. See the picture of me on my deck on a gorgeous day! Instead of moving over a little bit, there is the back end of a dump truck in the picture.
You can tap and hold down the spot on the viewfinder of your phone to lock focus on your main subject. If you don’t do this, the phone will guess for you.
Try shooting from a low angle instead of straight on for different looks.
For more tips straight from the source, try this article from Apple. If you use an Android, go to this article from Joy of Android.
What do you take pictures of?
- Your children, grandchildren, or pets doing just about anything of course.
- Special occasions and celebrations.
- Nature scenes.
- Simple everyday moments.
- Think like a photographer when you are on walks. Get in the habit of noticing things.
If you need help getting into a habit of taking pictures, try an app or a challenge.
1 Second Everyday – this is a video diary app that lets you capture one-second video moments on your phone every day. Take pictures of anything you want. At the end of the month, you have created a movie!
Photo Challenges – I created this one, but you can find many on Pinterest.
I am for sure going to do this. They do not have to be in order or even exact. The challenges just give you ideas when you are not sure what to photograph. Again, they help you get in the habit of being aware of what you can photograph.
Disclaimer: The links below may be affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission should you click through to make a purchase. This in no way impacts my recommendation of said products or services.
How many pictures do you need?
As many as you want. The key is that you need to go through them, edit the ones you like and save or delete the rest.
I have dabbled in scrapbooking, and it is nice to have a few to choose from, but you really only use a couple for each page. One or two pictures are all you need to highlight occasions.
To help you with editing, here are the 3 most popular photo editing apps according to Oberlo.com. Snapseed, VSCO, and Prisma.
If you do your editing on your computer, the 3 most popular photo editing websites according to Techradar.com are GIMP, Ashampoo, and Canva.
What should you do with all of these pictures?
The organization is the key with pictures. If you just leave them on your phone by date, it takes a long time to find the ones you want. I have and I have watched people scroll through their phones for hours trying to find that one picture they took last summer.
At the end of every month, schedule some time to go through the pictures on your phone. Delete the random items you took pictures of and the multiples.
Check out this article on the best Photo Organization Apps.
When you are feeling confident and getting good at taking great photos, you can apply to sell them via Shutterstock!
Once you start getting in the habit of taking great photos, you don’t want to lose them! Check out this article on ways to save your photos from disappearing forever.
5 ways to save your photos from disappearing forever
- Back up your hard drive. Make sure that your images are not saved only in one place (your desktop/laptop computer, for example). …
- Burn your images on CDs/DVDs. …
- Use online storage. …
- Print your images and place them in a photo album. …
- Save your prints, too!
If you need organization ideas, this article on photo organization has some great tips. You can use boxes, dividers, photo books or digital files.
Creative ideas for displaying your pictures
This article has some very creative ways to display your photos in your home. Here is an example!
My kids bought me a Ceiva frame for Mothers Day a few years ago, and we can all digitally transfer pictures to it. It’s a digital frame that we can update daily. It’s fun when the kids put new pictures on it and I’m surprised the next time I see it!
Scrapbooking and photo albums are great ways to get creative.
You can also use your photos to make t-shirts, mugs, magnets, coasters, quilts, or pillows.
Now we know what to do with and the how, what, and how many photos to take. It’s time to get busy recording life. As we age and our memories fade, our experiences in life will fade too.
I want to be better at taking pictures and I hope these photography tips will make it a little easier.
Do you have any photography tips to add? Feel free to help us, beginners, out!
“Photography is the beauty of life captured.” Tara Chisolm