What makes a great photo?

Ten years as a photographer has led me to understand that there are five key components that go into creating a great photo, and my photography training courses are based around teaching these to students. Here I put them in the context of how they might apply to a beginner photographer, taking photos with a smart phone.

The five key elements that go into creating a great photo

The importance of each element varies depending on the situation, however, creating a great photo needs all of the following components:

- Great subject

- Powerful composition

- Pleasing light

- Technical knowledge

- Appropriate editing

So, below is a very quick guide to how you can start to improve each of these components and begin to change from taking snaps to taking great photos. Although these are described in terms of landscape photography, they are equally applicable to other types of photography.

1. Great subject

Clearly choosing a great subject can help to make or break a photo; it's unlikely that you will come away with a great landscape photo if you just walk out of your house and take a photo of your street. Getting out into beautiful locations, such as a local beauty spot or National Park and seeking out some beautiful views is a good start.

2. Powerful composition.

I'm sure all of us have been standing looking at a great view, taken a snap and then when looking at it later are completely underwhelmed by how the photo just doesn't do justice to the view. This is because the world around us is three dimensional, and converting it to two dimensions can end up with a flat and uninteresting photo. Composition tricks can help to start making your photos more interesting and engaging to look at. I've covered these in previous newsletters, but in my book the most important two rules to start using are:

A. Rule of thirds: Split your photo up into nine sectors, using two equally spaced horizontal and two vertical lines (most cameras, even phone cameras have a grid that you can enable to help you). Start using this to structure your photos e.g. put the main subject of the photo on one of the vertical lines, rather than putting it in the middle. Also put the horizon on either the upper or lower horizontal lines, rather than in the middle. This will immediately make your photo more interesting to look at.

B. Lead in lines. A really powerful composition tool is to try and find something that helps to lead the viewers eye into the photo. This can be a fence, a road, or even ripples on the sand, and they can be especially powerful if they are placed to lead in from the corner(s) of the photo to lead the eye towards the main subject.

3. Pleasing light.

There is a reason that many of the photos that I take are taken at odd times of the day or night. This is because, the simple fact is that normal daylight, especially on sunny days is very white, can be very harsh (especially in the summer) and pictures taken at these times are often a little boring to look at. There are much better times of day and types of weather that can produce much more interesting photos, and this is true for most types of photo, not just landscapes:

Daytime: Choose a partly cloudy day to provide cloud interest in the sky and also potentially dappled light on the landscape.

Golden Hours: Taking photos in the golden hours (around an hour after sunrise and before sunset) is great, as the light is softer and has a more pleasing golden hue to it.

Blue hours: Although taking photos in the blue hours can be more technically challenging, the light about half an hour before sunrise and half an hour after sunset has a lovely hue and can be a great time to take photos.

4. Technical knowledge.

Although on my courses I teach more advanced ways to use a camera (such as shooting in manual mode, doing long exposure photography to blur water movement, or taking photos of the night sky, even beginner photographers using a mobile phone can improve their photography with just a little more technical knowledge. Some ideas for you to try include:

- Learn how to switch on your 2x2 grid so that you can compose photos using the rule of thirds.

- If your camera has it, learn to use the 'portrait mode' when taking photos of people. This will blur the background making your subject stand out more from the background.

- If your camera has it, learn how to use 'HDR' mode to take photos of high dynamic range situations (e.g. when taking photos towards the sun)

- If your camera has manual controls, learn how to manually modify the exposure if needed; e.g. to brighten a photo if the camera is making the photo too dark, or darken the exposure if the camera is making the photo too bright.

5. Appropriate editing

Even in the days of film cameras and darkrooms, photographers used little tricks to turn good photos into great photos. In these days of digital photography, editing has become even more important and at the same time easy to do. Even smart phones will have built in apps that allow you to do some basic editing of your photos (e.g. the photos app on the iPhone).

Some of the things you can easily do in these apps to improve your photos in just a minute or two using the Photos App on the iPhone (or similar on Android phones) include:

- Crop and rotate the photo to make sure that the horizon is flat and any distractions on the edge of the photo are removed.

- Try the Magic Wand tool; this will attempt to try and automatically make your photo look better. If it doesn't work you can just undo it and try manual corrections instead.

- Try reducing the highlights if for example some of the sky is too bright (overexposed)

- Try bringing up shadow detail using the 'shadows' option

- Try boosting the contrast to make the overall look of the image more 'punchy'.

These are just a few pointers, that I hope will help you to start thinking about how to take better photos, whatever camera you use and whatever your level of experience. Good luck, and if you would like to learn more then check out the various training courses that I offer on my website.

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