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Do you just snap pictures of friends without a thought to how it my turn out?A giant step up from people photography is portrait photography.  It gives you elements to notice such as the angle you take the photograph, the lighting you will use, and the expression of emotion on a persons face.  While you may be an amateur photographer deciding to take Christmas photos without the expense you will need to have some basic knowledge of techniques used by the professionals. You can find this knowledge through a digital photography course online but  first, read a good digital photography course review.

First when taking a photograph of a person you need to study their face.  The face is important to the angle you will shoot from.  Though it is a cliché, it is true some people have a better side.  This could be in relation to scarring or acne breakouts or even simpler.  For instance my left eye is larger than my right by just a bit, and looking head on into the camera will cause a horrible portrait, however if the photographer comes from the right side and angles up a little the light and shadows will help even out the features while keeping the distinctions that make me who I am.

Capturing the essence of the subject’s personality is what portrait photography is all about.  The little nuances of a face add character to the portrait.  You will want to loosen up your subjects.  If you are becoming a professional portrait photographer you will want to learn about your subject as you are taking pictures or perhaps meet them before the session.You should know what would get their personality captured on film if they are just your family. 

The next important step to portrait photography is lighting.Natural light is preferred by a lot of photographers over artificial light.In part, your subject will make this decision for you.Do not forget, you will utilize whatever light you have.Compensating for the cameras lack of definition will often require setting the aperture when using natural light.To get the effect you want you need to create the contrast between the light and shadows in other words.  Often artificial light is harsh and not directed properly unless in a studio.  Again you will need to use the manual settings on your camera to create the perfect portrait. 

The background is also important when discussing light.Picking backgrounds that will not wash out features or clothing is what good studio photographers do.  They want to have a distinction or contrast between you and the background.  This is also important of home portrait photography.  You will want a background that gives color to your subject rather than taking it away.  Finding a nice spot with a tree to sit on and mountains in the background can be a great portrait, but you will want to make sure the background is not too busy to distract from the subject.  Make the subject seem apart of the picture rather than outside of it.

The type of camera and film you use will also determine the quality of the photograph.  Once you combine techniques such as lighting, angles, and understanding your subject you will be able to create a near to professional if not professional portrait for your friends and family no matter the occasion.  Just snapping a picture is possible, but it would be great to have a better portrait?

Most sports fan know what it means for a team to go into what’s called a rebuilding year.  It is just when the owners or coaches decide its time to train new members and correct bad habits in others.  And invariably, what team leadership says when they go into such a time is that they are going “back to basics.”

Sometimes it’s good for us as photographers to go back to photography basics .If you are just beginning in the world of photography and you want to learn the ropes, the basics are the place to start.You need to know the basics that all the professionals know about the craft of photograghy.

Anybody can take a picture.  I attended a wedding reception where the wedding party left a disposable digital camera on each table at the reception for guests to snap photos.  Before the evening was over, it was the children who were running around taking pictures of everything from the dirty dishes to their own underwear.  These were not photographers and while those pictures will no doubt get a few chuckles, these are not the kind of professional pictures people want for their long-term memories.

It goes without saying that the camera is the conerstone of digital photography basics .  When you see a camera geek walking around with enough equipment on his neck to launch a space shuttle, you get the impression that cameras are phenomenally complex, more than mere mortals can grasp.If you notice professionals you’ll see them working with light weight, portable and easy to operate cameras.The reason is that aperture and shutter speed are the basics of operating a camera.

Don’t let fancy terms bother you.How wide your lens is set open to let light in is called aperture.The shutter speed is the amount of time you allow light to enter the lens and in turn affect the picture.  For getting a shot of a fast moving event, you want a wide aperture to let in a lot of light but a short shutter speed so you capture the event quickly and close the window so the picture is caught before more light hurts the quality.

Photography is really all about light.  You can and will get learn a lot about lenses and flash photography and other ways to turn the control over the lighting of a shot to you.  So add to your core skills of photography a willingness to never stop learning.You will learn more as your ability to work with the equipment becomes better and more sophisticated and you will want to learn more.

You can get a greater control over these basic controls of the camera such as aperture and shutter speed by learning how to switch from automatic settings to manual settings.Every camera has automatic settings but they were only created for the general public because they are not really interested in learning the basics.  So they give you some basic settings like landscape, portrait and sports settings.Different situations require different settings and you learn which works best when you switch to manual.

We now come to the concept of practice which is the most important photography basics to becoming a great photographer.Take the time to play with and learn your equipment.  Take it to situations and take photos with different aperture and shutter speed settings, in outdoor and indoor settings and different orientations to light.When some shots don’t work, don’t get upset.Everything has a learning curve and that’s part of it.

By learning by doing, you will build your confidence in your work and eventually become a great photographer.  But don’t get cocky, there is always more to learn.This one of the fun things with photography?