One of my weirder hobbies is I collect dead peoples photographs. Started fairly simple enough a while back, someone without children would die and I would ask "what are you doing with the photographs" usually the executor would say "I don't know, do you want them". So it started.
Many times the photos are from people I have never met, as they were bought usually at an estate sale. As I go though them it is almost like reading a novel about their lives. Sometimes it is heart breaking, seeing a little boy grow up, his parents taking pictures of him at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs in 1966, then seeing a photo from Arlington National Cemetery and realizing why I now have the photographs.
Since I am always looking for those fantastic photos that they took by luck, most of the time, I am disappointed. Most people take bad to boring photos.
So I have become quite the critic of other peoples photographs. Here are my tips from what I have learned about not taking bad photos, or at least taking photos that other people 50 years from now will enjoy.
1. Shoot film. Your digital pictures unless printed in black and white probably won't be here for your grandkids.
2. Focus and properly expose. That's much easier now with digital, but see above.
3. Move in closer. Once you have decided the photo your going to take, move in closer and take it again, this one will be better.
4. Trust me, your not an artist with a camera, unless your really good, your artistic pictures will not be. I know you will still do it anyway.
5. Take pictures of things that will change with time. That is the magic of photography. For this reason take photographs with cars in them. Sure take a picture with mom and the kids without your family car in the photograph, but trust me your son when he is old will appreciate the one with the car in it more.
6. Yes flowers are pretty and colorful, but see 4 and 5 above.
7. Take lots of pictures if you are doing or seeing something unique or unusual. I treasure the photos I have that were take by GI's during World War 2. They open a window on something none of us could have ever seen.
8. I know sometimes your are rushed, but try and take at least a few photos stopped outside of the moving car you are riding in.
9. The most boring photo of all, and which I now have thousands of, by hundreds of different photographers is as follows: A landscape vista, half ground, half sky. A horizon in the distance. Now insert the following, wheat field, grass, mountains in the distance, clouds, desert, blue sky, white sky, taken at grade, taken at an overlook, trees in the distance, buildings in the distance. Trust me it is not worth the film or the memory. And yes even if you use the proportion of thirds, its still boring.
10. Landscape photos are nice, but they do not change much at all with time. Imagine you are stationed in England during the war, you fly a P51 Mustang over Europe. You are a smart guy and you got a camera and you even knew about Kodachrome in 1944 and took color slides while you had time off. After 65 years the color images are preserved perfectly, you carefully focused and recorded each of the exposures by hand on the side of slide. So you took one photo of your plane, none of your base, or your buddies, but lots of pictures of the cathedral in town and big vistas of the town from an overlook. Which photo do I treasure? Remember this story when you take a picture.
11. Label your images, say who it is, the date, don't abbreviate, write your name, if your in it. With digital files you could label the subdirectory at least. If you expect your photos to last, you may not be around to say my name is John Smith, I took this photo. You don't need to label the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore. But if its Alice Springs, Australia you might write that.
12. Watch your composition. That pole or that persons head in front of you is really going to be in the picture. Take a second and move to a better spot.
13. Try and take photos with the sun over your shoulder. The magic hour for color photography is very early morning and very late evening, but that's for artistic and landscape photography and remember your going to do less of that now.
14. Have fun, experiment, break all the rules, shoot into the sun, but remember to still take the one photo of the P51 Mustang.