Well we have finally made it, we are into the top 10 all time greatest Photo tips. It has taken a few articles but upon arrival at the number one, no peeking. You will probably slap your head and say DUHH! Of course that is exactly what it is all about! So without further waiting let's get started on our Top 10 Photo tips of all time.

#10 Flashing someone can be very enlightening....

Ok so you have these different features on your camera, even most of the top end DSLR cameras include a pop up or controllable flash. Why don't people use these? Well the light can be unflattering in some cases but most of the time the pictures are so much better if you just pop up that flash. If you have a setting on your camera that looks like a lightning bolt, this will allow you to make changes to how the flash is set. It can be Off, on an Automatic setting when needed or just on all the time. This is especially true with point and shoot cameras. Turn this thing on even in BRIGHT SUNLIGHT and use it to fill in the shadows of your subjects. You will be so happy that you have flashed your subject, you just might do it over and over again.

#9 What The Heck Is That?
When you are lining up your shot, pay close attention to the background. This is where people's eyes will wander to when they aren't searching for your subject. What you place behind your subject is just as important as the subject itself. Remember you are working with a 2 dimensional medium here. If you put something behind your subject that makes it look like it's "growing" out of the subject, it will totally distract your viewers. Worse yet placing something that is more important than your subject either visually or in content behind them will make your viewer leave the subject of your shot. Avoid very bright objects that aren’t directly behind the subject, i.e. framing them. Avoid strong vertical lines like telephone poles and trees, avoid palm trees and placing the background too close to your subject. If you follow the guide of looking at the scene first then placing your subject into it, your viewers will never say "What the heck is that?" when they look at your images.

#8 Saving Time In Post Production
When I got my very first camera..... a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away... (that statement should tell you when I actually did get it)  the camera came as a kit with 2 lenses. There was a Normal lens and a telephoto lens. While I loved shooting with that normal lens, I really loved using the telephoto (zoom hadn't been invented yet ). Yea yea I am old. Anyway, I learned right away that if I wanted to get close to my subject and eliminate all that distracting stuff that surrounds them like other people, buildings trees etc, I needed to crop in camera. This meant getting close in some cases but because we were still working with film, you had to plan your shots a little more than people seem to do today with the throw away feature on digital cameras. Take your time, compose your images in camera look at the edges of the frame, most view finders show you 98% or more of what your final image will contain when you press the button. Use all the space wisely. Composing in camera will improve your images and save you tons of time in post production.

#7 Know Thy Subject - Keep Your Viewer Interested
Have you ever looked at an image that has so much going on that you just have no idea where you should be looking? We have all seen these kinds of pictures and they are singularly unremarkable. Your images should always have a focus, a point of interest that grabs your viewer and makes it clear that they are what this image is about. Before you snap that photo, ask yourself what it was that drew you to stop and think "I should take a picture here." Was it the brilliantly painted building, the way the elements of the scene lined themselves up perfectly ... what was it? Once you have discovered your main subject, explore it from other angles and then choose your favorite before pushing that button. Know what the focus of your image will be about before you push that button. I hear you saying .... what about stuff that happens so fast you don't have time set it up. If you find yourself in a fast moving situation that requires you to record it, anticipate what will happen next and be there before it does. Move your camera into position quickly looking through the lens and evaluating the entire scene before the event takes place. When it happens, push that shutter button.  

#6 How Low Can You Go?
One of my favorite things to do is to lower.... LOWER my ISO setting on my camera, that is. Early DSLR camera's couldn't shoot above 400 ISO without getting such a bad photo that photography it seemed, had stepped backwards rather than forwards. Today’s cameras though seem to be going in the opposite direction. Most DSLR camera's have made their minimum ISO setting 200 but have a great top end of 1600 and more in some cases. I am sad to see the lower end of the spectrum lose its grip on digital photography. I routinely shoot at 100 ISO for the smooth, quality images that can be produced there. Sure you need a little more light to work in but most of the time that isn't a problem. In fact I will change to a lower ISO to be able to achieve more desirable settings like a shallow depth of focus in bright sunlight. Shoot your images on the lower ISO settings for high quality images.

#5 Go Big Or GO HOME!!
When you bought this fancy new camera with its 10-12-18-20 megapixel rating you did it because of the higher quality you could get out of all those pixels. Why would you then shoot everything on the lower quality settings on the camera? Is it because the camera only came with a 1 GB memory card? Or that you never download your pictures to your computer and you are trying to save space? I know, maybe you have decided that because you never make prints bigger than a 4x6 you don't need all that quality?  So why did you spend the big bucks on the camera? Crank it up to 11. Use all those pixels on every single shot, you will be much happier with your prints.... which can be HUGE by the way, not to mention feeling like you are getting your money's worth out of that expensive camera.

#4 Burn Baby Burn
Can you honestly say without a doubt that you have a backup of everything you have shot in the last 6 months, year or 2? If you can then you are among the very few people that can. If you backup your work by never erasing your memory cards, that is great, as long as you keep them in some sort of storage and just keep buying new ones. If you re-use your memory cards like most of us, you should have at least 2 backups of your images BEFORE you clean that card. That means you should have transferred them to your hard drive, and then burned a disk of the files, maybe even printed out your favorites before you clear the card. Burn baby burn.... Disks are cheap and when properly kept will last for a long long time. Hard drives fail, ask anyone whose computer has ever crashed. They lost everything. It has happened to us, 2006 was a fantastic shooting year. Literally thousands of customer files on a hard drive that FAILED. Were we freaked out? Sure. Did it slow us down a little? Yep. But it didn't stop us dead in our tracks. Every single client was backed up on CD or DVD and we simply loaded them back into a new hard drive. Back up your files and if possible store your backups off site. In the event of a fire or other natural disaster you will have a better chance of recovering your work.

#3 KISS
This is one of the oldest acronyms out there but it is also one of the most forgotten. Keep your images simple, uncluttered and flowing. Your composition should be easy to follow, with a strong subject and complimentary background. Great light and pleasing lines. Keep It Simple.... Sweetheart is not just a statement, it is a photographers best friend. The more uncomplicated your images are the more appealing they are to your viewer. Keep distracting composition killers out of your shot. If it doesn't belong there... don't put it there. Think clean, clear shot, little or no background distractions, framed subjects that pop off the image at you and you will be living proof that the KISS method of shooting is the only way to go.

#2 What Happens If I Push This?
Have you ever wondered what that button on your camera was for? WHY? Get out the manual and find out. Take a class or two and learn what it is for. Are there things on your camera menu that you don't understand? You paid for this camera and ALL its features, take the time to learn what all the widgets and buttons are for. What each setting does or doesn't do. In the long run you will not only learn what they are for but somewhere along the way you will learn more about your photography. Knowledge is never a bad thing, find out what the heck that button is for. Look it up, ask a camera tech at the store you purchased the camera from or just push it to find out. Don't be afraid, in my 30 plus years of doing photography I have never pushed a button or set a menu selection on my camera that made it self-destruct. Go ahead and learn what it is for, you might actually surprise yourself with a clever new tool.

Ok here it is......... Drum Roll PLEASE........
The NUMBER 1 TIP IN OUR TOP 50 PHOTO TIPS

#1 The Definition Of Photo - Graphy
Photography literally means "Light Writing" This seems simple enough but for over 100 years now mankind has tried to master this new art form. We have changed the way we shoot, record, develop and print our Light Writings. There have been those who are considered Masters, those that were simply professionals and those that were the everyday Joe or Jane's taking pictures of their kids in the back yard. All of them have one thing in common and that one thing also separates the truly great ones in each category from the well, not so great ones. The defining factor is right there in the name of the medium. It's all about the Light. Those that are great photographers at whatever level, understand how light falls, plays and can be bent to their will. They look at it, study it and understand why it acts and reacts the way it does in relation to the subject. They manipulate it and bend it to produce a scene that captivates, excites and holds their viewers in a moment that has long since passed. The Number ONE Tip is to LOOK AT THE LIGHT, before you shoot, is it exactly what you want it to be, can it be modified in post production or on site to make it what you want it to be? Is the color, contrast, brightness what you would expect to see? In short control the light and master the medium.

We hope you have had as much fun with this list as we have had researching and bringing it to you. Understand that we by no means believe this is the end-all, be-all of photography tips out there. We are talking about an art form that has changed the face of our planet, from every cereal box we buy to the images on billboards, buses, buildings and in family photo albums. We are a nation obsessed with our images. We capture them with our phones, post them on our Facebook pages and just as quickly replace them with the next image of our lunch. All we hope to achieve here is to have our readers take time to experience their images both before and after they have made them. It is easy to be image jaded with the barrage of images we are struck by every day. Maybe after reading these tips, you will take the time to create something not just capture it, when you do be sure to post it to the web and email us. - Aloha