Have an eye

Good pictures occur constantly. Some we see, most we don't and almost all slip by uncaptured. It takes a photographer, a hunter of images, to bag a prize photo with a perfect shot.

Fiona, my granddaughter loves the park. There is one looped metal bar that she always likes to poke her head through when heading for the slides. Behind the looped bar there is a translucent sheet of bright blue plastic and a round, translucent, white window. Catch the little girl at just the right moment and you have a picture.

Composition and colour: First, the beautiful blue didn't just appear by accident. I picked the camera angle with the background in mind. Also, the arc of bright white in the lower right wasn't just happenstance. The only major colour that I did not control was the bright pink of Fiona's coat. It was perfect and it was luck.

Today's point and shoots take care of the focus and the f/stop and shutter speed. In this case, this loss of control posed no problem. In most cases, the photographer still controls the length of lens, unless the camera has a fixed lens rather than the more common zoom. Remember, portraits look best shot with an 85mm to a 105mm lens.

These numbers actually refer to lens used on 35mm cameras but with many point and shoots an adjustment is made to allow the use of 35mm lens size terminology. This photo of my granddaughter was shot at a slightly long lens setting which was comparable to an 85mm lens on a 35mm camera.

The camera set the sensitivity at ISO640, the shutter speed at 1/500th second and the aperture to f/5.6. I couldn't have done better if I'd done it myself.

If you want good pictures and your aren't getting them, don't blame your point and shoot. Blame yourself. You simply have to have an eye.