How To Take Your Best Photos For Blogging

 
This week in our blogging series we are focusing on photography. Everyone knows that photos are part of what brings people back to a blog. We are visual creatures. We like "pretty"  things to look at.

Pat from Back Porch Musings has been kind enough to give us her top photography tips. Her photos are most assuredly some of the most admired in the blogosphere. (All the photos in this post were taken by Pat.)

Pat's tips:

1. Download Picasa, Photoscape, Photofiltre (all free editing programs and very user-friendly.)

2. Turn off the flash

3. If you don't have a tripod, try setting the camera on a stack of books or step stool or something else to stabilize the camera and set the timer.

4. Think outside the box when taking photos. Choose subjects out of the ordinary and find new ways or angles to get the shot.

5. Take lots of pictures. You might take 100 to get 10 good shots to use in a blog post. 

6. Practice with the aforementioned editing programs.

7. Take time to play with the camera and angles, etc, 
when you aren't necessarily doing photos for a blog post.

8. Try not to over process photos. (I asked exactly what she means by this. She said over processing is when too much saturation is used for darkening, etc. She said use the saturation tool sparingly. For instance, when you think you have just the right amount of color, decrease it a tad.) 

9. Shoot in black and white now and then.

10. The Picasa program has a straightening tool that works great when the horizon or angle of a photo is a tad off.

11. You don't have to have one of the big cameras to get good shots. I use a point and shoot Canon G11, as well as a Canon Rebel T2i.

12. Early morning and dusk are great times to take outdoor shots, when the light is soft.

13. Try using natural light indoors, when possible.  

I have looked up the links for the free programs Pat mentioned:

Picasa: http://picasa.google.com/
Photoshop: http://www.photoscape.org/
Photofiltre: http://photofiltre.free.fr/download_en.htm

I have been sitting here going through Pat's blog. I want to share a gallery of her photos with you. I am nearly brought to tears by her inspirational images. I could look for hours and hours. Enjoy.