It may come as a surprise to some of you but I didn’t start out to be a people photographer. In 1982, when Mary and I opened our studio we divided the workload based on the type of images our clients requested. That division of duties turned out to be a simple: Mary photographed people and I photographed things, mostly architecture and some products. Every now and then because of scheduling and availability I would shoot a few business portraits but people were really Mary’s game.

In today’s post I veer away from the normal assortment of photography tips, tools and techniques to get a little personal… Other than how to pronounce my name and where do I find my models, people sometimes ask, “where is Daisy Hill?”

Camera and software companies like to say that their products are “easy-to-use,” sometimes forgetting that part of making that actually happen can create unrealistic expectations. But user errors can also be responsible for much of the frustration of capturing, enhancing and printing digital images. So here’s a few tips to minimize that user error and improve your photography at the same time:

Let’s get this out of the way first: Equipment doesn’t make portraits, people do.

Throughout the history of photography, there have been many articles and books written about the rules of composition that purport to offer a path to creating a perfectly composed image.