How to take great summer photos - tip 6 (Cheshire photography course with Picture It Big)

This is my favourite of the top tips so far...

BE CREATIVE, EXPERIMENT AND HAVE FUN!

This sounds like it could be the introduction to a totally different topic, but we are still talking photography!

Digital photography is brilliant because you can play about as much as you like, take dud pictures and just delete them - at no cost. With apps and different settings you can get some really great effects. I've never done Instagram personally, only because I'm an android girl, but I've got some great apps on my phone that I use a lot for my fun photos. My favourite is Retro Camera - it's really easy to use and has about 6 or 7 different camera effects.

Most of the pics on the left have been taken using this app and a few had effects applied in Picasa - free image editing software from Google (more on this in the 7th and final post of this series).

A word of caution - don't over do the effects - don't use them for every picture and make sure it's still a photo worth taking. It should still be well composed, in focus and correctly exposed. Don't use effects to disguise a bad photo - it never works.

I like to make photo books, calendars and all sorts of stuff so that I can enjoy and share my photos (again more on this in tomorrow's post), and this sort of fun, creative shot gives some variety to whatever it is I'm making.

I also like to capture shots of details that remind me of my holiday or that special day. I love trying to do abstract shots too. This next collage has some great examples.

The more you experiment the more you learn so get playing with those settings and apps!

And if you like the collages learn how to create them in Picasa by reading my blog about it! Here to serve!

By Jane Burkinshaw. Share this post by clicking on one of the Share buttons on the right hand side. I'd love to hear your comments too!