Take a Picture Like a Pro

 This ible is for everyone that wants to have a better picture whether it is for your own ibles or if it is just a family picture. I really hope that you can use this ible to your advantage and hopefully you will never take a bad picture again. (the picture above is a perfectly composed picture because all of the colors compliment each other and this picture follows the rule of thirds which we will talk about later)

This ible can also help with school, high school, and college projects.
This ible can also help turn a bad Picture into a great one!

 First off you have to know your camera. Look at your camera and find out if it is digital or film, does it have a "hot shoe" (an external flash like on old film cameras there is the built in flash but there is also a separated flash that is connected to the camera through an electrical port on top of the camera). does it have optional digital storage capabilities, and whatever other questions you can think of. This ible is meant for both digital and film cameras but there is certain parts and steps in this ible that are meant for certain cameras I will be sure to mention this in the step title so you dont waste your time reading steps that do not pertain to your specific camera. 

 Lenses are yet another key to taking a great picture I recommend that you should have a telephoto lens which has an incredible zoom length like in those TV shows where the film crew looks like it is right on top of the tiger they are really 200 to 400 feet away but they are using a telephoto lens, a wide angle which can take pictures of families and a macro lens which takes extremely detailed pictures of insects up close. 

 The subject is key when taking a picture like if you take a picture of a skateboard ramp it might be good to bring a skate board along to get your point across to the person looking at the picture that you were at a skate park plus it also makes the picture look a million times better when looked upon. as you see in the picture I borrowed a skateboard (because i am in the process of making one) and leaned it against the halfpipe wall and took pictures from different angles to get my point across. as people always say a picture is worth a thousand words. But beware of CLASHING subject matter like if I was to put a TV in the middle of the halfpipe granted it would be cool looking but it would not make sense and just make the picture more confusing than it should be.

 Lighting is a big problem in taking a picture if the lighting is bad then automatically the picture is bad. Have you ever noticed that when you take a picture in a really dark space and when you use the flash the picture seems to get even darker well that happens a lot and do not be discouraged when taking pictures that look like that. You should be asking yourself why did that happen was I to close is this space to dark what can I do to make this picture better. And a good picture all starts with lighting if you are taking a picture at night along the beach do not use the flash just take the picture normally or if it is pitch black with no light at all thats when you use the flash. as you can see in the pictre on the beach picture they used the flash when it was not needed but as you see in the other picture(of me) i was standing next to a window (it was out of the pic) and my mom when she took this picture she turned the flash off and used the natural light coming through the window. Also when you use the flash make sure there arent any glass or shiny surfaces in the range of the flash because the flash will make a huge white glare appear in the photo 

 Once you have the subject matter and lighting down you probably want to make your pictures more interesting huh? well just by moving a couple steps to the right or left you can make your pictures stand out more and be more interesting like in the picture below( the one side view) I could have made that a lot better if I had just squatted and had moved to my left a couple of steps. But the second one is better because I squatted and moved over just enough so that i could still get my puppies faces (to a point) granted i know my little brothers hand is in the picture but that is beside the point right now. So my basic point for angles is make sure you make your pictures more interesting by making the camera look up at something or stand on a balcony and look down on to whatever object you would like to take a picture of. I also suggest that you take several pictures of the same thing just at different angles then pick your favorite to display.

 Ok your probably thinking what is the rule of thirds well the rule of thirds is a basic rule pretend to put a tic tac toe board over your picture as you see in this picture the hawk is not right in the middle of the picture but instead it is off to the right side but the hawk is looking over his shoulder to the left this picture follows the rule of thirds exactly because the rule basically says you have to see enough of what the subject is focused on and you have to line your subject in this case the hawk with the lines on a tic tac toe board as you see with this hawk it is lined up perfectly and you can kind of see the direction he is looking at so you might be able to form a conclusion such as the hawk is eyeing its prey just by looking at this picture.

 Accidents happen all of us realize that but we can always avoid accidents right maybe when it regards knives or other potentially threatening things but with pictures there are always accidents such as shadows, glare,hands and arms out of nowhere, cut off heads, blurry movement, trash and faces. all of them are picture ruining disasters and can be avoided if you just take your time and are aware of your surroundings do not be rushing when taking pictures because the more time you take the better they look I guarantee it.

 Ok for those of you who own digital cameras you can edit most of the bad accidents out of the picture but you have to know how to use an editing program I personally like gimp and photoshop but I recommend Gimp because it is free and easy to use and is very much like photoshop now I know there are ibles that discuss how to use photo editing software and I will give you some links because editing is not my area of expertise I really dont like to edit my photos because i want to learn from my mistakes and how I can make my pictures better. But I do recommend these ibles on photo editing software 

www.instructables.com/id/Photoshop/



www.instructables.com/id/Using-GIMP-to-manipulate-photographs-and-images/

 Remember to check your picture area for trash or anything that could cause a distraction while looking at your picture also you need to remember that if there is any way you can avoid an accident do it you also need not to forget that you need to take your time while taking pictures.

 Thank you for viewing my ible and I really hope you can use it to your advantage but I would like to give credit to all of the people I borrowed pictures from and all of the companies. Thanks again and enjoy taking your pictures 

If there are any problems with this ible please PM me thank you.