What's the #1 Best Advice You Would Give To Someone New To Photography!

[soezin]

Here's my two cents..


Be one with your camera - know everything about it - it's capabilities and limitations...


And shoot lots and lots - there's no "wrong way".. - be creative... and try to have fun..

[SupraSonic]

always like to refer tho the Robert Capa quote:


"If your pictures aren't good enough,you aren't close enough"


Agreed & don forget Subject,subject,subject,Angle,

[Colin]

Shoot everything. Anything that catches your eye. Look at boring things, and see if you can make them interesting by narrowing down to a feature, coming at it from a different perspective, whatever. When you find a picture you like, try to figure out what it is that works. When you don't, try to figure out what fails.


Take criticism. Value it. Even if it's wrong, if you learn by identifying what you value and what you don't.


Exposure- Aperture/Shutter/ISO. How it affects depth of field, time lapsed during the exposure, what moves, what doesn't, and what that implies.


Think about light. Color temperature, where it's coming from, and how it affects what the camera sees (vs. what you see, it's not the same).


Field of view, how it affects what you can do with perspective, and what you capture versus isolate.


Just play with everything. Don't worry about taking pictures that suck. It's part of the process, even with experience. The more sucky pictures you take, the more good pictures you'll end up with. The more pictures that you end up with that are good, the more you can identify why they worked, and apply that to other things.


Just do it, ask questions when you've got them, and the path will unfold by itself.

[btaylor]

My best advice (aside from the excellent suggestions so far)...


If you see a good shot - take it!!! Never let an opportunity to capture a great image get away.

[peterborough_photography]

enjoy taking pictures and enjoy what you shoot.