This is a list of my top 10 tips to taking a better photo. (Note: please don’t take offense if any of these apply to you. We all make mistakes–especially me–and the quickest way to learning is recognising the area of weakness in what it is you’re trying to get better at.)

So whether you’re just starting out or already own a Canon 1D X, I hope you find this guide useful. And, as always, I love to hear feedback! Got some photos you’re unsure of? Struggling with a photography term like aperture or shutter speed? Loved the article? Hated it? Like my new socks? Whatever, feedback rocks. I love feedback!

Here we go.

10. What’s all that wasted space about?

This one’s a classic. There’s someone’s head (or in the case of the example shot above, some boring mountains) right at the bottom of the frame and about a million miles of empty space above them. Don’t get me wrong, this can be a good effect. Sometimes. However, mostly it just looks bad. If your shot is currently featuring a whole lot of empty space, make sure your subject is in a position that makes good use of this. For example, if it was a front-on shot of a family member, and nothing but blue sky behind him, I would tend to put his eyes two-thirds the way up the shot. For more info on this, check out tip 8.

9. Slapping an Instagram filter on a poorly framed shot in no way makes it “arty”

The surge of free iPhone apps that are “changing the way people do photography” is quite astounding. Not in terms of being astounded by creativity, but being astounded that so many people use it and think it is super duper artistic. You’ll see it on a daily basis on Facebook. A photo with an olden day colour palette of mostly browns with a faded colour area splotch the middle, all nicely frame in a polaroid film border with a random number up the top. Sure, the person who first did it was cool, but photography, like any type of art, is all about creativity and doing things differently. The polaroid and oldschool look that made a comeback these last few years is now so overdone that it’s just getting silly. Here’s 3 words that will forever stretch your photography skills: Try something different.

And on a quick side note, this same principle applies with black & white photography. Just because you snapped a deck chair and the back of someone’s head and changed it to grayscale does not make it a work of art.

8. Framing, framing, framing

The golden rule of framing goes something like this… Picture your photo in your head. Now imagine that same photo with lines drawn over it dividing the shot up into thirds. 2 lines vertical, 2 lines horizontal (as illustrated in the above example). In the 4 places these lines intersect is where your main subject could potentially be. If the subject is not around one of those four general areas, chances are the shot isn’t well framed. This rule is often broken to good effect, but it is a very safe and proven way to frame a shot. A couple of notes to go with this: Remember headspace, and mostly avoid centre framed subjects. Headspace means the area between your subject’s head and the top of the frame. If you have placed them on either of the topmost two intersecting “third lines”, the gap between their head and the top of the frame should be just under a third of the frame’s total height. Confused? Rule of thumb: Is the main subject’s head sticking into the top of the frame? Unless your shot is a close up, this is not a good sign. Tilt your camera up until there is a not-too-small but not-too-large gap there. Give them some breathing space, but not too much!

7. You call that lighting?

If you remember only one thing I say, remember this: Lighting will make or break your shot. Some examples of poor lighting are: bland natural light (for example, overcast days, that look the sky gets right before it’s about to rain, brilliant midday sunshine, etc…), low-light (if it’s getting dark and your camera decides to use its built-in flash, chances are the lighting sucks), Fluorescent-tube indoor lights (they make humans look like pale-face zombies). Some examples of excellent lighting are: early morning first-light looks (that awesome newness the earth seems to exude up until about 10:00 am), twilight or sunset lighting (be careful here; the sweet spot doesn’t last long and you don’t have much time to grab your perfect shot using this great lighting time), summer evenings when the sun is nice and golden (again, don’t dilly-dally as this type of epic lighting waits for no man!). I can’t stress it enough: Lighting is everything (well, almost everything). Never discount the importance of good lighting in your photography.

Too dark:

Just right:

6. Bold shadows tend to look revolting

Ever taken a photo at lunch time on a sunny day and wondered why it looks ghastly? Dark, pronounced shadows under the eyes, nose and certain types of sticky-out-foreheads are not flattering. At all. Everything looks much too contrasted and the colour palette is washed all out of kilter by the domineering sunshine. The blacks are too dark, the lights are too light, and all in all, it makes for a photography disaster. If you ever find yourself in the situation where you simply must shoot at midday in brilliant sunshine… don’t. Errr, I mean, try find a shady tree or somewhere out of direct sunlight. Even then it’s hit or miss whether you’ll get something usable.

5. Shoot children on their level

This is good:

This is not so good:

No, don’t take a gun to kids. Rather, when you are photographing children (this can be quite trying, especially if they are young children), always, always, always shoot at their height. Photos from an adult’s height looking down on what the kid is doing scream “Look at me, I am an amateur photographer!”. Sure, you can break this rule to good effect, but most of the time you should stick to it. It can be a little embarrassing getting down on your stomach, or even hands and knees to take that elusive perfect shot, but really, we’ve just gotta get over ourselves. The photos look 10x better, I guarantee it. Rather than coming across as looking down on a child from an adult’s perspective, the photo will look a lot more natural, candid and friendly. Three things photography needs a whole lot more of these days.

4. Stop putting all your unused junk in your shot

This is good:

This is terrible:

This one is almost as common as the common cold! How many times have I looked at photos taken by well-meaning relatives only to see all kinds of random oddities cluttering up otherwise OK-looking shots. Sometimes it’s so bad you think the subject is the broken pram alongside the baby rather than the newborn that will forever change the parents’ lives! I’ve seen it all… things like toy tractors, random poles, chairs, fingers over the lens, vacuum cleaners, big foot, Pikachu, books, plates, lawnmowers–aaargh! A photo is for the purpose of drawing attention to a subject; not distracting from it. It tells a story. What does useless junk that has absolutely no relevance to that shot do? It ruins it. This is all part of the lengthy process of learning to frame your shot well. But just remember the next time you’re about to click that shutter, stop. Take another look at what is in your photo. Sure, you can crop later on, but take a better photo first so you don’t have to! Photography is an art, not a bunch of happenstance things that accidentally give you good results.

3. There’s safety in numbers

The beauty of digital photography is that you can take many photos without the expense of getting them all developed. While I definitely do not endorse filling up a 6gb memory card with millions of photos of the same thing, I do recommend taking 3 or 4 shots of the same subject, especially if you are waiting for the perfect facial expression or waiting on an action shot to unfold (diving into a pool, riding a bike, watching paint dry, whatever it is you like to fill your memory card with).

2. Watch that focus

This is good:

This is absolutely disgusting:

Depth of field (the amount of the frame that will be in focus) is a great tool–use it. Portraiture where the subject is in focus and the background is nicely blurry is textbook stuff for building a professional shot, but it can also cause many headaches later if you muff it up and the subject does not end up pin sharp. The classic mistake is to get the focus around the wrong way (trust me, I’ve done this… at a wedding–eeek!) where the background is in focus and the subject is blurry. Experiment at home with the way your camera handles focus and never have another focus-ruined shot again. (Yeah right.)

1. Always be poised and ready to attack!

This is my all time top tip. OK, so maybe the word attack is a little melodramatic, but always be ready for action! The best photo opportunities come out of nowhere, last about half a second, before never ever happening ever (ever!) again. You’ve gotta be super speedy and have fingers like little mini Burt Munros. Learn your camera controls inside out so that you don’t miss that award-winning shot looking for that one setting you found that one time that you quite like. If that happens then I can almost guarantee you’ve missed the shot by a good two minutes! And in photography time, that is a very, very long time.

Bonus tip: Straighten that horizon!

Crooked horizons can be arty, but usually they just look bad. Next time you’re taking that shot to hang on your wall of our beautiful New Zealand coastlines, stop and check if your camera is straight! Some cameras have guides in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen to help you gauge this. These are useful. Use them.

This is good:

This is ridiculous:

Moments of silent splendour like these make you remember just how fleeting time here on earth really is–a breath on the wind, the whistle of a boiling kettle, the jangle of a school bell, the slamming of a door, the ripple of a stone hitting still water . . . *ahem*

But however mysterious and short life is, it’s well worth appreciating, yes?

You can view the full resolution versions of these photos over on the photography page

The colour layering techniques used here I will probably explain at a later date. Probably.

Determined to capture this awe-inspiring and altogether inspirational scene, I armed myself with my trusty camera, a shutter remote, a tripod and a really warm hoodie and tracked my way into the cold night.

This is what I captured, and I hope it inspires you as it does me.