San Diego Life Online

In this day and age of digital cameras, you’ve probably heard or thought that all you have to do is push the button and great pictures magically appear.Hold on, don’t go so fast.The fact of the matter is, you can have the best digital camera, but if you have no clue in what you are doing, you are gonna take horrible shots.

I would love to give you some good tips to help you improve your photography skills. These tips are coming from years of experience shooting weddings in San Diego. These tips all involve lighting and they are going to be some of the biggest keys to your success in taking your photos.

First tip you will use in regards to lighting. Now if you are taking shots outdoors during the day, natural sunlight provides some of the best lighting possible. Now you are probably thinking, “that’s easy, when you are a San Diego photographer since it is always shiny there”, when in actuality really bright sunlight can cast harsh shadows. Or it will wash out the face details while the sun is overhead.

Overall, most of the shots you are going to want to take with the sun behind you.This eliminates any harsh shawows from effecting your shot from the sun.There will be some times when you want to take shots from different angles when you do try to get some shadows into the shots.

Now that we have addressed the shots during the day, what about those night shots?

The key technique for night photos is actually turning off your flash.Of course if it is absolutely dark with no light you will need it, but for times when there is some lighting, use the lighting around you, but make sure the shutter speeds are slow enough to let light in.Also, stay steady when you are taking your photograph or you will cause the picture to blur.Doing these tricks should make a significantly dramatic difference when you take night shots.

The final tips to using lighting for great shots is using the golden hour. Now there is a time that photographers refer to as the “golden hour” or “magic hour”, and that is during sunrise and sunset.

It is during this time of day when you will capture great shots that capture more warmer colors. You will be able to capture that golden lighting you won’t catch any other time of day.

There you go.Probably the biggest tip in taking beautiful photos is to make use of the natural lighting around you. Knowing what techniques to use for different parts of the day, or just scheduling a photo shoots to capture those times of day will help you become an excellent photographer.