The rule of thirds is one of the most basic principles of composition in photography, and one you will use all the time going forward!  Here's how to do it: 

What you need to do is imagine that your photograph is divided into nine equal sections by two horizontal and two vertical lines (as shown below) Apparently, when we look at something, our eyes are naturally drawn to the points where these lines intersect. Placing a point of interest on one of these intersections, or placing elements along one of the lines, gives the photo more balance and is more appealing to the viewer. 

Still taking most of your photos on Auto and too scared to make the move to Manual?  

You probably already know that in order to get the shots your camera is capable of,  it really needs some guidance from you! 

The good news is that your camera has some features that allow you to begin to very, very gently move away from Auto and start to gain a little more control, which will in turn greatly improve your pics - all whilst you pluck up the courage to switch over to full manual control.  

(Go on, you know you want to!)

Although I confess to loving a bit of a play about in Lightroom or Photoshop, for some of my images I just want to be able to take them straight from camera to print without having to do much work to them!

Of course, it also helps if you have a great base image when you want to go further with your editing too, that way you have extra time to spend on the image without having to do a load of boring adjustments first :)

Other things, like skin tones, are always much better if you get them right in camera too.  So, my goal is always to make sure that I get a great shot straight out of camera (SOOC)

Negative space (sometimes also called White Space) is simply an area of "empty" space around the subject of your image. Space that is negative is usually either a neutral or contrasting background that draws your eye to the main subject of your photograph.

Want smooth, even skin and eyes that are full of life in your child portraits? I bet you do!  This simple tutorial will guide you through the first steps of using natural window or doorway light to create beautiful portraits.

Sometimes it can feel like we take the same images time and time again!  That's why I always try to mix it up by making sure that I include three types of photos when taking images of a person.   

Although that sounds like a little amount of options, within these basic types you will have a considerable amount of variation available on each one, depending on where you place your subject and where you shoot from, how you have them pose etc.  

If you keep these three simple types of portrait shots in mind when shooting, you will help make sure you get a good range of photos from one session. 

Ready? Let's go! 

White Balance is my nemesis, and I am sure it is many of yours too! There are a few ways you can set your white balance in camera - you can use Auto White Balance (not recommended!),  use one of the presets available in your camera (like Sunny, Cloudy, Tungsten etc) then tweak in processing, or set a Custom White Balance, or use Kelvin...

After you have mastered the basics of photography, it's time to get started on the fun stuff - and for me, composition is one of them!  Interesting composiiton can take an ordinary lifestyle image and elevate from a snapshot into something much more artistic so it's worth wrapping your head around a few tools  So, today, I'm running through some compositional "rules" (I say, "rules" but really you should think of them more as guidelines to experiment with) that I think can add the most impact to your images. 

Give your mom an amazing gift with this FREE Mother's Day Template for creating your own Interactive album in Photoshop! 

I appreciate i'm a little early, but if you are anything like me, projects that used to take one or two days to complete now can take weeks instead, so I thought I'd post early to make sure you have enough time to use this Mother's Day Template if you wanted to! 

The idea for this album came about after my mother received a christmas card from my son. It was the first time she had been given anything with his handwriting, and there were tears in her eyes as she read it. (bless her, she also wanted to frame it!) I knew then that a little book with some recent photographs, along with his writing and drawings would make a perfect gift for Mother's Day, so this album was created. I love it so much that I thought I'd share it with you guys if you wanted it too. 

Fancy treating yourself to a new photography book to curl up with this weekend but don't know what to get? Don't worry, help is here! I know it can be hard to know which to buy from the multitude available out there, so - seeing as I appear to have my own mini library of them -  I've compiled a list of books that should give you some idea of what to add to your Amazon cart this weekend!  I should point out, I don't have all of these: some are books that I have read and enjoyed, others are ones that have been recommended to me by people I trust, and I've thrown in a couple that have caught my eye but that haven't actually got around to buying yet!

I love black and white images - they are beautifully timeless and allow you to see the world in a completely different way.

However, there are many images that are just not a good candidate for a black and white conversion. If you have ever converted an image and thought it looked a bit "meh", the chances are it was just because that particular image wasn't a good fit. 

Although there are no hard and fast rules about what makes a good black and white image, here are the things that I watch out for if I am looking to convert the image into black & white. You can use this in processing, or even when you are shooting if you know you want to convert the image later. 

Ready? Let's go! 

One of the best things I did in my photography journey was to start setting my white balance in camera, rather than relying on AUTO.  I was really struggling with getting the right colour in my image - in particular skin tones - and I could spend ages mucking around in Lightroom or Photoshop trying to get the image to look "right". When you can't "see' colour correctly, this is a really, really hard task! 

First of all, how many of you have heard of the term Bokeh? It comes from a japanese word meaning ”blur” or ”haze” and refers to the part of the image that you have intentionally blurred by using a selective depth of field. This affect is used a lot in photography to focus the eye on a specific subject within the frame (used a lot in portrait photography to isolate the person from a background) and just to create a more pleasing image. It’s probably one of the keys things that will make people think of a portrait looking more ”professional” so it is a good little trick to have in your photography arsenal!

You have probably heard numerous times that if you are trying to get better quality images and improve your photography, you shouldn’t use your cameras pop up flash. Why? Because it produces a very hard light which will a) look unnatural and give you lots of hard shadows b) hit your subject straight on so that he or she will look flat and drained and c) will probably always leave your subject with red-eye. All in all, deeply unflattering! For this reason, I definitely prefer taking images using natural light, and strive to do so, but there are times when you simply do need to use flash, for example taking photos indoors when there is little light available.