Since I don't have as much time as I'd like to get out to take pictures these days, I thought I'd add a semi-regular feature on good photography advice I've picked up in the last few years.
The first tip I'll offer is probably the most important. It comes to me from David Middleton by way of Jack Graham, who taught the photography workshop I did last summer. Middleton says "A bad photograph is a a paragraph, a good photograph is a sentence, and a great photograph is a phrase."
When I go back and look at the pictures I took when I first started, they are all paragraphs. I'd see something I liked here, but then, I'd also try to incorporate this other thing over here and maybe something else over there. The problem? There's no clear subject in that type of photography, and good photography almost always has a defined subject.
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In today's local newspaper, there was an article on wintertime shooting.
Look Here.
On the same web page are many photos submitted by readers. I offer these pictures as supportive evidence that your first tip is very important.
Thanks for the link to the article. A lot of solid advice there.
Mr. Gassman's recommendation on metering is an important one. My recommendation would be, if you are up for it, simply never do automatic metering in the first place. Getting to Gassman's point, you do have to be cognizant of what you're metering off of. I think snow is perfect to meter off of, because you know that you want it to be very white (at least two full stops more open than 0). Similarly, something dark is great to meter off of, because you know that you want it very dark. The key is to pick a color in the image and think about how light or dark you want it to be in the final image. Then, meter accordingly.
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