Elements to great photos?

So, the photos that you see that are by professional photographers or even amatuer. Pretty much anyone using a camera that has settings that can be altered. Anyways, those photos are not just taken. There are elements that have to be taken into account when capturing the photo or moment.

One of first things I learned about is the exposure. Exposure is the amount of light that is hitting the sensor when you are taking your photos. You get too much and the photo becomes overexposed and really bright. Too little results in underexposure and the photos looking quite dark. You have to go between the aperture, shutter speed and ISO to get the right lighting for the photo. Even when taking all that into account, there is what you could be photographing. You have to take in account the subject such as white things and black things. Depending on the exposure, they come out gray and you have to adjust to get their color without jeopardizing the rest of the photo.

Next, was the topic on lighting. Their are a few things to know about lighting. It could be natural or supplied through you via a flash. For natural light, there can be back light, where the sun is behind you, sidelight, where the light is to the side of the subject being photographed, or back light, where the light is behind the subject. Each one results in different photos and used under situations. Where backlight is good for photographing subjects, sidelight is good for landscape. Depending on the lighting, it can change the colors and details of your photographs, so you have to be able to get it right depending on the subject.

Then there is depth of field, which is focus on the object. When you have a great depth of field, you are focusing close in on a subject and getting its every detail. With little depth of field, you are focusing on the whole picture or a bigger spot. Using depth of field depends on what you're photographing. Great depth is great when focusing on animals and you're trying to blur the background around them. The picture is about them. With little depth, you should try and go for landscape. You want to have focus on everything; things up close and far out.

The last thing, was motion effects. Which is basically the use of the shutter speed. The shutter speed is how long the camera is exposed to something which can be a few seconds, to thousands of a second. Having a higher shutter speed would be ideal for trying to capture a photo where the subject looks like its stopped. Its not blurry, but just stopped. Lower shutter speeds can be used when trying to capture the motion of things. If you want to make it look like the object is still moving with blur or even running water. Having a low shutter speed can make for awesome effects in photos.