Many of you may ask; "How can I get good pictures?".             

Is it having the best equipment?

Is it having the best printing?

Is it being able to travel to exotic places?

Hmm, well all of the above does help ... but it is not required.

We have been taking pictures for over a decade and we started out with (and still shoot) some pretty uninteresting images. We persisted, using more and more rolls of film, taking pictures of more things until ... well there really wasn't a point in time where we became "good". After a while you get to know what a good photograph looks like before you have even taken the picture.

The art of seeing ... this phrase has been used over and over again. It is true. The best photographers have an "art of seeing". It is essentially the ability to view a scene with your human eyes and then to be able to imagine how the end photograph will appear. Humans have an amazing ability to focus in on one point and this creates a problem when viewing a scene through a camera ... what we think we see is not what ends up in the picture.

The equipment you have will assist in manipulating the scene to fit the image you pictured for the final product.  This is what a lens does for the camera. By using the appropriate lens you can manipulate the visual space of the image. The key is ensuring that you view the entire scene through the camera and realize that this is the final image.

You most likely have had numerous rolls of film with images that you thought were great but the pictures that you are looking at now disappoint you.

Why is that?

Have you ever gone out somewhere and just stop. You see something and you say to yourself ... "if I only had my camera".

When this happens you should sit back and look real hard. Look and think about what is so special about the image you see. There obviously must be something attractive about it, but think real hard and visualize if it will make a good "picture".

Take away the sounds, smells, and feel of the image. Just look at the image. Is it as good as you thought ??