What is a good picture can be discussed. The taste is known to be divided. What I like is not necessarily the same as you like. But we humans have a tendency to prefer certain images more than others, even as a group. If you follow some rules, the chances are greater that more people will like the pictures. I have received many positive comments on my photos and videos. I thank you most humbly for them! Therefore, I thought I would share 7 simple tips you can try yourself to take even better pictures.

Photograph in bright light. Strong sunshine is good!
Try to have as short a shutter speed as possible.
Hold the camera at eye level with the subject you are shooting.
Enhance the image on your computer or mobile phone.
Turn off the automatic mode and try to shoot RAW.
Practice, practice, practice!
Break the rules! :)

Thanks to Madlen Steén, who helped me with two of her dogs Jakeem and Cheri.

You can watch a video from the occasion above on the Swedish Doberman Clubs YouTube channel here.

Photograph in bright light. Strong sunshine is good!

Make sure you take your pictures when you have a lot of light. Preferably a sunny day outdoors. When you want to take pictures where the dog moves, you can hardly get too much light. This is even more true when you shoot with, for example, a mobile phone with a tiny image sensor and a lens that cannot let in as much light. When it comes to our athletic dogs that are dark in color and where we want to bring out every muscle in the picture, light is the most important thing! Do not forget the eyes! They need a lot of light to stand out and we like to see the eyes, whether it is dogs or humans.

Try to have as short a shutter speed as possible.

With a lot of light, we can have short shutter speeds and low ISO numbers. This means images without too much motion blur and with little or no noise. If the camera is set to automatic or uses the regular camera app in the phone, it will set this if there is enough light. If you have the opportunity to choose a mode on your camera for Sport, I recommend that you do so. In many cameras and some camera apps, you can choose to shoot with shutter speed priority. Then I suggest you test it with settings of 1/500 or higher.

Hold the camera at eye level with the subject you are shooting.

Make sure you have your camera at eye level with the subject you are photographing. I often see pictures taken from above, from a bird's eye view, but sit down, kneel or lie on the ground. You will notice that with this simple trick, you get more good and fun pictures. If you want to photograph a dog with a human in the same image, try to get their eyes at the same height. If this is not possible, think about what is most important in the picture, the dog or the person and choose the camera height based on it.

Enhance the image on your computer or mobile phone.

Feel free to use a program on your computer or mobile phone to "develop" the image. Many pictures appear better when you lighten up the black parts or give the picture a little more saturation regarding the colors. Other things can be to crop the image to get the right size for the place where it will be used. For example, Facebook and Instagram use different sizes of photos. Many photos will benefit from a little extra sharpness and often you can remove some noise. Tips on applications can be Lightroom, available for both computers and mobiles or Snapseed on the phone. But there are many other programs, both free and paid versions you can use.

Turn off the automatic and shoot RAW.

Most people shoot with their camera or mobile phone in fully automatic mode. The camera or app tries its best to understand and create an image that is as good as possible. Sometimes it goes well, especially when shooting outdoors in good light where the whole scene is evenly lit. But just as often you get a lovely sky as a background but a black blob as a dog or vice versa. Therefore, I recommend training to set the camera manually to fit the scene and what you want to achieve. In many cameras and in some camera apps, you can shoot in a format called RAW.

Simply put, this means that the camera captures as much information as possible. Still, you need to "develop" it in an editing program afterward otherwise the images may feel washed out and lacking contrast. The advantage is that you can do much more with the picture afterward. You can often rescue an image that would otherwise have been destroyed.

Practice, practice, practice!

As with everything you want to be good at, you have to practice! Work out, work out, work out! Learn your camera, all you can do with it. How the settings create different results and work more or less well in different situations. You will be amazed at how much you can adjust, thus taking better pictures. Soon you will see that your photos are starting to get better and better.

Break the rules! :)

Finally, I think you should practice compositional rules. Following these often creates images that more people like. One of the most common is the third rule which you can read about here https://bit.ly/3ufgneH

Learn the rules and then break them to create unique images that stand out in different flows. Good luck!