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 truth is you can have the top of the line digital camera, but if you don’t know what you are doing, you will take lousy 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 as a San Diego wedding photographer.These tips are about using lighting and they will be some of the best advice and keys to your success in taking great photos.

First tip in lighting.Now if the shots you are taking are outdoors during the day, some of the best lighting possible will be the natural sunlight.  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 stops any harsh shadows in your photo caused by the sun.  But there will be some instances when you want to try different angles when you are trying to get some shadows into the shots.

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

The key to taking photos at night is turning off your flash.Of course if it is absolutely dark with no light you wil 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 you want to stay steady when taking the shot or you will blur the photos.  Doing these couple of tricks can make a dramatic difference when taking night shots. 

The third and final tip with using lighting to capture great photos is the golden hour.There is this time that photographers like to call the golden hour or magic hour, and that is sunrise and sunset.

During these times of the day you will capture great shots that allow you to capture more warmer and inviting colors.You’ll be able to get that golden lighting that isn’t available during any other time of day.

There you have it.  Probably the biggest key in taking greatshots is to make sure you take advantage of the natural lighting.  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.

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