The Secrets to Creating Amazing Photos. Marc Silber

ground). It is often associated with a portrait of a person but, again, many landscapes are taken in portrait mode. It’s all up to you which format you use to tell your story, and you can always shoot it both ways and decide later which works best.

4. Turn at an Angle

      Sometimes to get your photo to “pop” it is as simple as just turning your camera on edge, as you can see I did here with my seventh grade classroom. I first shot it as a straight up portrait and decided it would be more interesting to shoot it on an angle, so I just turned the camera at about a 20-degree angle to get a totally different flavor of the classroom scene. But when you compose on an angle, do so purposefully to communicate what you intended, not just to have it appear as a crookedly captured image. As with most of these tools, that may take some practice.

5. Points of Thirds: Place Interesting Elements along These Lines

      Back in 1797, John Thomas Smith, an English engraver, remarked that you could break an image into lines of thirds as an aid to composition. He suggested that, by placing important elements of composition on one of the lines or at the intersection of one of these lines, you could achieve a harmonious picture.

      To do this, it helps to turn on the “Grid view” in your camera. You can find out how to set this up in the manual for your camera under “Grid view” and, on a smartphone, go to your camera settings and tap “Grid” to enable it.

      David Smith, an award-winning outdoor photographer, gave this advice about composition:

      “Use your grid view in your camera to place a subject on a point of thirds, which has a really strong dynamic pull to our eyes. You might have the subject looking into the frame or looking across the frame. If the subject is looking to the left, leave more space on the left for them to look into; same, of course, on the right. If the subject is looking up, put them low in the frame looking up at something.”