You can do it! Lesson 1

Yes, that is the cheesiest title in the history of blog titles, but it's true. You can be a photographer. It won't happen over night, but there are things you can do the next time you pick up your camera that will greatly improve your shots.

I spent a lot of years with point and shoot cameras. I took them everywhere. My small canon film camera took amazing photos (or at least I thought so at the time). I was flipping through my old photo albums the other day and couldn't find one shot I would consider putting in my portfolio.

The lighting was good, exposure good, colour good, what was I missing? In a word, composition. All my photos had that blah center weighted composition that bores the viewer. Person dead centre, horizon line dead center, it's habit to plunk the subject in the middle, but it is very boring to look at. Back then, my idea of composition was "don't cut the feet off!" and that was it.

Why does this photo work? 1. Subject is not in the center. 2. The tree line starts up high, and brings your eyes down to the subject. 3. Subject is looking in the direction of the tree line. 4. winding path connects trees to subject.

Did I plan this? Yes of course I did! No, I played around with different compositions and when I filed through them on the computer this one stuck out. Composing with small children is usually luck and speed (but that's another post).

Most point and shoots allow you to change the focus point. You don't have to shoot where the green box tell you to. Get your subject out of the center and I promise your photos will start improving.