Confessions of a Craftaholic: Digital Pics. on Parade

So tonight segment's will be about digital photography. First, a few things about my love/hate relationship with photography: I love capturing moments in time, but I hate uploading images to the web, I love editing photos in Photoshop, but I get easily daunted when I have too many images to get though (ahem..my wedding photos- still working on them) .

I'm still learning all the time, and I think I have drastically improved now that I've actually started really looking through the view finder before I click away.

Like allot of my crafting skills I picked up Photography as a hobby, and until recently, I was happily snapping photos for albums oblivious to what generally makes a decent photo. I though people who have the "eye" for photography were gifted (like my little sister) and I would spend the rest of my days taking nice but mediocre images.

I first started taking my Photography a little more seriously when I moved to Woodsville, NH and as the high school art teacher had to teach Photography as a course. To be honest I was terrified. I hadn't thought of Photography seriously since high school, and now I was required to teach Photography to teenagers, Ug. The summer before my first year at WHS I spent many hours reading books on photography, looking at images on the web, and reading lot of online tutorials, and these are a few of the tips that I have been able to use to create more dynamic and interesting images.

Focus on the subject- close in on what you want to be the main topic of the image, and cut out the rest
The rule of thirds (Google it) If you cut your image in thirds in both directions and place your subject matter on a cross section it'll automatically add interest to your image
Contrast & Value- make sure you have a wide range of values from black to white.
Change your angle look at something in a new way.
Notice the small things. There is beauty all around it's just right under our noses.