Got yourself a new camera but disappointed with the end results? Don't worry - help is at hand!
Marlow Church - taken by Max Pickering
BBC Photographer of the Year, Max Pickering from Aylesbury, gives us his top ten tips for making the very best of your camera.
Ask yourself - 'What’s the point of interest?' You really need to take the picture and have a look and decide whether it’s cluttered or not. It can be that a sunset behind lots of things can tie them together. It can be that it doesn’t work at all in which case you can put the image on a computer and crop things out that you don’t want.
You can manipulate the effects on a computer afterwards, but if it’s not there in the first place you’ve got to be pretty good to create it. I’d rather be out taking pictures than trying to create things on a computer!
I usually use black and white when there’s a very strong contrast. In the days of film if you loaded black and white into the camera that was what you got. With digital you get a lot of flexibility. Having said that some of the great photographers worked in black and white; never saw a digital camera but they’re still great.
Shadows give an extra texture to the façade that you might not necessarily see before the lights come on.
Slow down and listen with your eyes. The more you hurry to take a good shot the more disappointed you’re likely to be, so use patience.
Definitely use a tripod. It’ll keep the camera still. And when you’re working keep the walls straight and the horizon level. And always a good point is to make sure you don’t lose the camera. There’s no point in taking that perfect picture if you haven’t got the camera to come back with.
A good photo is if you take it and like it. If you take it and other people like it then the more people that like it the greater it is. A great picture is just one that lots of people like.
Max Pickering
A good place to learn more about your camera and how to use it is your local camera club.
Be yourself and find something you’re passionate about. And then explore it. Find an angle on it that you like and then you’ve got good pictures automatically.
Get out there and take more pictures. Practice does improve if not make perfect. Maybe there is a perfect picture. But it’s not so much taking the perfect picture. To my mind, it’s the journey to find that perfect picture. The aurora picture is a case in point. There are things about that picture that I think might be better if they were slightly different.
