Hilal Mansur .com

When it comes to photography, it's not that difficult to learn all the tricks of the trade. Sure, when you get more advanced and acquire lots of equipment its a different story. However, as a beginner, things aren't so tough.

As a beginner, some basic rules will improve your shots immensely. There is an easy way to go about improving your photographs. Instead of trying to learn technique after technique, learn one technique at a time and master it. Know it as good as you can. Make this technique a part of you. When you master the basic techniques the more advanced techniques will flourish.

One simple technique I'll share with you is simplicity. Simple right? Well, this is something beginners mess up all the time. When it comes to photographing your back yard most people try to get everything in the shot. The jungle gym, the dog house, the basketball court, the nice garden. There's one problem.

It's too cluttered! Sure, a photo with all this can work, but it usually works because the location is just extremely interesting or it everything was designed to look good on camera. For most back yards or anything for that matter, taking everything in one shot will make things cluttered, messy, and complicated. Viewers will not know what to look at. Visually, it won't be pleasant.

The solution is easy. Isolate. Get rid of unwanted details. Sometimes less is better.

Examples of doing this are:

1. moving your camera higher and pointing it down to your subject - this will remove background clutter.

2.Zooming in and focusing on the most important subject - zooming in will get rid of details unnecessary for the shot.

3. Change the depth of field - similar to zooming in, the depth of field will control the picture and isolate the subject. It is commonly seen as a shot with one subject and the background blurred. I won't get into this topic as of right now.

4. Control the color - If you are controlling the colors of the shot, make sure there is a good contrast between the subject of interest and the background. You don't want the brown dog to be in front of a brown mountain and blend in. When you're shooting wildlife, etc wait till the subject is easily seen in a good background. This can mean waiting till that wild donkey moves away from the mountain and leaves the blue contrasting sky behind him.