1- Find Inspiration
Find the best photographers in the genre (or 's) that you want to take photos in. Then look through all their work and get inspiration and ideas from it. Don't copy their work like don't try to completely recreate what they are doing. But do take mental notes and aspire to have images like theirs. Straight away you have loads of ideas there and waiting. I'm going to name drop a few of my favourite photographers in their particular genres so you can go ahead and look them up now.
Landscape Photography- Daniel Kordan
Travel Photography- Steve Mccurry
Street Photography- Mary Ellen Mark
Portrait Photography- Kai Boet
I would share their images here but copyright and all that stuff!
2- Lighting
Lighting really is the make or break of any image. Taking photos during what is called the golden hour will make your pictures look a lot better straight away. I have wrote a blog about lighting here. I can't put as much detail as I would like to in this blog so go check that out! If you want to take pictures during the golden hour then you can google what time it will be or look on apps. I personally use an app called golden hour one.
3- Think Differently
Try to take photos that are original and different. Especially if you are in a popular location for taking photos. Go where the crowd isn't. They are all going to be stood in the same sort of area meaning all their pictures will have a very similar composition. You want to stand out then try a different perspective because otherwise it's a competition of who has the best edit really. Your lighting and composition with be practically the same.
4- Editing
There are simple actions you can take to make your photos look a lot better quickly. Check out my youtube video on the basic panel in Lightroom here. Editing takes a few minutes to learn but a lifetime to master. You will see instant results just giving it a go with the basic panel.
5- Angles
I see so many people get their camera or phone out and just take a photo without thinking about it at all. If you want your pictures to be better then stop and think about the angle. What are you trying to achieve with the photo. Take a few pictures and each time stop and look at the picture- think to yourself what can I do to improve this. Try whatever that improvement is then look again. Repeat until you find something you are happy with. This is what I call "working" a picture. You will get better at it over time and once you start doing this you will see a big difference straight away!
Thank you for reading! Let me know if you found these tips useful- you can contact me here
Or even better let me know on my Facebook group here