Beginning Photography Tip #4:
Be Selective

Detail Photo of French Breakfast
© Jim Miotke
All Rights Reserved

Discern what you are really interested in and center your efforts on getting the best photo of this subject, whether it a still life, your funny cat, your doggy, a friend, a family matter, a mood, a place or culture.

Then be sure to keep anything that would distract out of the picture.

The easiest way to do this is to watch your borders - the edges of the view you see through the camera's viewfinder. Then recompose if anything - such as an unattractive telephone wire, an old soda can, a distracting sign, your finger, or your camera strap - hangs into your picture.

It can become more difficult if you want to, say, shoot a San Francisco cable car without a single distracting telephone line. But even in such a difficult case, you have many options.

• Focus in on a close-up that tells the whole story;
• Move around until you arrange the telephone lines into a neat pattern that leads to the subject; or
• Take a panning shot that makes the cable car remain in focus while the background goes blurry.

Panning Shot of a Bicycle Racer © Jim Miotke All Rights Reserved