When you have got a digital camera it is very cheap to take pictures. In fact it costs you nearly nothing. That's good because you can take hundreds of pictures without worrying for the costs, and just keep a few of them.
When we take pictures we try to make the best out of the situation. We see friends in a nice or interesting situation and we snap some pictures. We visit different places and we take pictures of what we find interesting or fun, and we take pictures to have something we can show our family and friends when we come back from the visit. Nowadays more and more take pictures to put them online to make them visible to the whole world or at least to their selected friends and their family.
On vacation the pictures will be a sum of our memories to keep for decades to make the vacation even more valuable for us. You meet new people and conserve the memories on the digital files.
Some people develop a keen eye in seeing the opportunity for a picture and become good photographers by catching that special moment that will be a true pearl of their collection of photography. This is a very good talent and some of the most celebrated photographers in the world have had that ability to catch the special moment, in some cases to catch an action in a split-second of time.
On the other hand some of the best pictures aren't just been snapped, they have been created by the photographer. Here are some ideas for creating your own super-shots.
Put things together to create a picture
Let's say that you are having a wonderful meal and want to take a picture of the meal. The food is delicious, the decoration at the table looks terrific and you are together with a nice person. In such a situation you will often get the most interesting picture by taking the picture vertical. Organise some food in the foreground, make sure that a limited part of the table decoration is in sight and place your nice company in the picture. To make all this happen you just need a few minutes to take a look of the possibilities at the table and to make sure everything is in your frame of your picture. If you have to use the flash of the camera you might get the trouble that the foreground becomes very light and your nice person behind becomes too dark. With a white tablecloth this problem might even be exaggerated. To avoid the problem reduce the distance between the foreground and the person behind.
Include a colourful foreground when taking a picture of a place
Just one single colour added the right place in a picture might make it much more outstanding. Are you taking pictures in a garden there might be many colourful flowers. But without having one of the flowers in the foreground the picture might look very banal. You might have the option to move a pot or jar with a colourful flower in front to include it in the picture. Don't place this flower in the centre of the picture frame but arrange it to the left in such a way that it is around 1/3 in the picture from the left. That will often add substantial appeal to the final picture. Many artefacts can be used with a similar effect in other situations.
Let people do something
When you take pictures of friends and family let them do something. When people are active the picture will be more interesting to see. Many pictures of friends show the friends shouting hallo or drinking or showing faces. That isn't what I mean with letting people do something. No, let people do something more unique to each person. Let them do something related to their work or hobby or other special interest. A trick could be to let them dress themselves in a special way, With a little practise you might be able to create really outstanding and interesting pictures, you will be happy with yourself and improve your esteem as a photographer among your friends.
These small tricks are useful whatever kind of apparatus you are taking picture with. Are you taking your pictures with a mobile phone you will still be able to improve your pictures by making use of the above photo tips. As you start giving your picture taking more attention you will see the potential of starting creating pictures and not just taking pictures.