Basic Principles of Photography

Now that you have a camera, what types of pictures should you take and how should you compose your shot?

The most common are portraits of family and friends, and even with these there are a couple simple things to keep in mind. The first is called the Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is an imaginary tic-tac-toe board that divided an image in three both horizontally and vertically. The idea of this rule is to put the subject, i.e. your family member's head, at one of the intersections or on one of the imaginary lines. This allows the entire subject to be in the frame and gives enough space for a background or an object.

Another important thing to keep in mind is what is going on in the background. If it is something you want, like the Grand Canyon, make sure that it is as in focusa as it can be, otherwise it will be too hard to distinguish from other parts of the background. Also, if you do not want anything in the background, thing about putting your subject on grass or something will little variation in color so that it does not distract from what you are taking a picture of.