Tips For Beginning Photographers

01. Start in your own backyard
You don't need anything fancy to start photographing! Just use any kind of camera you've got, and search out the beautiful in the ordinary; that's what photography's all about.

02. Go as manual as your camera will allow
Don't just go clickclickclick- in order to get the best pictures, you need to work the settings well. Yes, even on a P&S. My point-and-shoot allowed me to adjust aperture and ISO, and that's how I managed to take somewhat bearable-ish photos.
            If you don't know the first thing about manual, you can find explanations on aperture and explanations on shutter speed here and here, respectively.

03. Don't over-edit
I just can't stress this enough; you don't want your photo to look like this.

04. Don't listen to cliches
We've all heard them; hard light is bad, P&S can't take good pictures, the sun should be behind the photographer.. etc.   Don't completely disregard them, but take them with a grain of salt. They aren't rules to live by.

05. Find your own style
This sounds so cliche- but you should. I don't mean that you should limit yourself in any way, shape or form, just that you should be conscious of what you're good at and what you like to photograph and how you like to photograph it; don't just imitate some popular blogger.



~Nina

P.S. I now contribute at a lovely blog called Pencil Rubbings, go check it out!