Compose Yourself

By Danielle Gagnier

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Whether it is picking out a person from a crowd because their beauty makes your heart skip a beat, or looking at photographs and zoning in on one that tugs on your heart strings, everyone’s definition of beauty is completely and utterly different.

There are plenty of ways to up your game when it comes to taking pictures. Here are some tips on how to go from taking average photos to playing in the big leagues.

First you need a DSLR camera or a digital single-lens reflex camera. There is an overwhelmingly large number of settings on these cameras, so let’s focus on the most important settings.

Your ISO setting adjusts your camera’s sensitivity to light. If you are in a dark room, you need a higher ISO so your camera is more sensitive to the light. If you are somewhere with a lot of light, your ISO should be on the lowest setting because your camera has enough light to work with already.

Your white balance is determined by what kind of light bulb is over your head and how many degrees kelvin it is. That determines the warmth of the photo. For example, the sun is between 3000k – 4000k, whereas an overcast sky is between 9000k-10000k. Be sure to adjust your white balance accordingly.

The aperture is another setting that affects your camera’s light sensitivity. Smaller stops, also called f-stops, allow more light to enter your lens and give you a longer depth of field. The bigger f-stops are the opposite. You can change how your photo looks entirely with this setting by changing how much of your photo is in focus. 

The last setting in this quartet is the shutter speed. This controls the amount of time the sensor in your camera is exposed to the light. Higher shutter speeds allow you to take photos of objects going fast and still have a crystal clear image. Slower shutter speeds are harder to manage, as even the slightest tremble of your fingers can distort your image. Steer clear of any shutter speed under 100 until you’re a pro.