Source: Personal experience, I take lots of pictures.
By Karen from Arnold, MO
This page contains the following solutions.
If you have a camera, you can save lots of money by taking your own portraits. Here's one of my son when he turned 6 months. We didn't have the money to get professional photos taken, so I did my own session!
Use a soap container to carry your camera in. I bought one at the Dollar store for mine, it fits perfectly. It's easy to carry it around in your purse and there is less chance of breaking it.
When you are on vacation, taking pictures of family/friends or just scenery you want to save, remove the memory card from your camera when going through the airport security check points and put it in your purse.
Why spend alot of $ at the photo studio when you can take pictures like this with your own camera! This is my 13 month old daughter Maggie Mildred.
Remember those photos many years ago where the subject was so far away you could barely tell who it was? Get your shot ready in your camera screen, then take a couple steps closer to your subject, making sure you still have the subject totally within the screen.
Don't let photo ops go by unnoticed. One of my son's friends came by to show us his new car. He had just got back from Iraq the day before.
Diffuse the flash on your camera with a coffee filter to soften the brightness. You can also try putting coffee filters over lights or lamps to lessen the harshness when taking indoor photos.
Photography - It isn't about the background, but more so about the subject, so fill your contents with the subject of the photo. If not, the subject might get lost in the background.
Camera memory cards can be misplaced easily or stolen. To insure return of a memory card, a person can make a computer business card with pertinent information regarding their name, address, phone number, email address, etc.
When taking pictures, watch the foreground. If you can place trees, branches or some other object in the front of the picture, it "frames" the photo. Also taking pictures before/after a storm gives you cloud formations, lightning effects, and taking pictures at the level of a kid (get on the floor!) is better than from up high.
An excellent published professional photographer once told me that it's often best to do outdoor photography on cloudy days. Colors of flowers and leaves look much more vibrant on overcast days and there are fewer shadows to deal with.
If you have no pencil with which to write down information, take a photo with your camera phone.
When going out to take photos, don't take the camera case with you. This is like putting up a "Steal me" sign. I use one of the soft padded containers people use as lunch boxes.