How to take great pictures

Last year I wrote a series of blog posts on how to take excellent sports photographs and published them on my Trimmphoto page. I don't know if anyone read any of them or took any of my advice to heart so I decided to follow up with this...

In those articles I went over F stops, shutter speeds, lighting, angles and all sorts of stuff that I felt was needed to get shots that really stand out. Most of that may have been over peoples heads so I decided to write a different blog that isn't about any of that stuff.

Here is another way to take excellent sports (or any other kind) of photographs...

1. Pay attention to what's going on. This is mainly about sports, but if you have your nose buried in your phone you will miss the good shots. Should be no brainer advice but I've seen many paid professional photographers staring at their phones while the great shots go by the wayside. 
2. Get close... The closer the better. 
3. Find your subject. Pictures without a defined clear subject are dull to look at. 
4. Crop (and or) compose your picture. Photographs that are not well balanced are hard to look at. 
5. Color correct your pictures. Pictures straight off your camera will look washed out. Trust me on this. (and please do not dump 50 unedited photos on Facebook. Nobody is going to get past #3.

If you set your camera to the "action" tab or "portrait" tab you may get some good shots. If you follow the previous advice, you may get a lot more awesome shots. 

It's about attitude as well as being proficient in how you set the camera.