Whether you take one picture every few years or take dozens a day, you may be wondering how you can make your pictures more impressive. Here, we’ll give you a handful of suggestions to make your pictures stand out more, be more clear and capture exactly what you’re seeing and want to capture on film.

Compose your photograph carefully. Sometimes you might have to actually move things around to get the proper contrast or light you want. If you are taking pictures of objects, turn them to get the proper angle. As you progress, you will learn how to make a scene look natural when you compose it.

Make sure you taking lighting into account when you’re taking your photos. Will there be shadows cast upon your subject? Is your subject squinting into the sun or other bright light? Try moving around to find the best angle in the lighting to get the best photo. Try taking your photos at different vantage points so that you can see what works best.

Keep your technique for snapping photographs simple and easy. You don’t need to mess with a bunch of different color and motion settings to produce a beautiful photograph.

Overcast skies aren’t great for pictures. Capturing an excess of gray sky in your image can cause your pictures to look washed-out and muted. Although, if you are taking photos with black and white, you can shoot your photos with an overcast sky. A bright, blue sky can create a lovely backdrop as long as you are careful not to overexpose the shot.

With these suggestions in hand, start looking at your most recent photographs and see if these tips would have made the pictures even better. If you start noticing that there is a suggestion or two that would greatly improve a few of the photographs you’ve already taken, try finding a way to incorporate that suggestion into every photograph you take from now on.