Welcome to Photo Tips. This is the place for guidance and inspiration for beginning and intermediate photo buffs. There are a lot of mathematical and scientific terms associated with different techniques in photography but you won't see them in this blog. Why? you ask; because you don't need to know all of that jargon to take great photos. Not once during a photo shoot have I thought about these technical terms. I'll always try to keep things as simple as possible but if for some reason it just doesn't stick with you please email me and we'll get it straight. Since this is the first real edition of Photo Tips, I'll give you two for the price of one. Number 1, if you haven't read your camera's manual, please please do so. It sounds kind of silly to be saying this but most people actually don't read the manual and usually don't have a full understanding of how their sophisticated piece of equipment works. In order to enjoy your photography to the max, get to know your camera and its functions. Your level of creativity will increase instantly. Number 2, beautiful bright sunny days usually leaves you with not so sensational photos. Let me explain. On sunny summer days, if you're shooting in the midday hours...10am-5pm...the sun is high in the sky and throws a harsh specular light. It may work for some black and white photography but for colour work either the shadows are too black or the highlights are too bright and burned out. (This can be remedied with multi-imaging or HDR but that is for another blog). The answer is to shoot during what is known as the "sweet light". Early morning light and early evening light tends to be warm and rich with nice long shadows that add more depth and dimension to your images. During sunny days in autumn, winter and spring however, the sun tracks relatively low across the sky thus giving you much more prime time to shoot during the day. So set that alarm clock or reserve some time later in the day and get out there and catch the "sweet light".