by Alex Bramwell

Created on: April 11, 2010   Last Updated: April 20, 2010

In essence, photography is the art of recording what you see if front of you using a camera. It is the ability to catch a single moment of time and record it for posterity. Great photographs trigger an emotional response in the viewer. Recently however, advances in digital technology have made the field seem much more complicated. Advanced software applications and the rise of HDR photography have taken the focus away from the moment when the photograph was taken. Photographs can now be endlessly manipulated using computers. This is not necessarily a good thing! A photograph taken in bad quality light or a photograph of a boring subject will always be a poor one, no matter how much clever trickery is employed later to jazz it up.

A good photographer is familiar with their equipment and able to use it without thinking. Be aware that there is much more to photographs than just getting them in focus. You must understand how depth of field, shutter speed, artificial light, reflected light, color temperature and a myriad of other factors will affect your photographs. If you don’t, you will miss those fleeting moments of time that would make a great shot.

The single most important element of producing good photographs is to exercise your photographer’s eye regularly. Some photographers just seem to have the ability to capture the moment and it doesn't matter if this is done with a throwaway instamatic camera or a 40,000 dollar digital miracle. Their ability stems from an instinctive understanding of the rules of composition (and how to break them in a positive way) and an understanding of how light works. Anyone can produce a good photograph simply by chance if they take enough shots. Good photographers not only produce good photographs, they consistently produce good photographs and do it in conditions that others struggle with. They do this by constantly practicing and by learning from their mistakes.

To continue improving your photography, take photographs every day and take them of a wide range of subjects in different conditions. You then need to have the ability to be very critical of your own work. Rather than just keeping the good ones and discarding the rest, analyze all your photographs and work out why some are better than others. If possible, return to places you have failed to take a good shot of and keep trying until you get a positive result. A good photographer is never happy with his or her work!

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