Peter's Perfect Piccies...

Some tips for recording your country walks on camera...

Why Are You Uploading Your Photos To Facebook?

Juxtaposition makes it more interesting 

The answer to this question sounds obvious, and it is, and that answer should have a bearing on what you do with your photos before uploading – but often it doesn’t!

The answer is because you want your friends to get a flavour of your walking experience, to find enjoyment in them, entertainment and information. You want them to be interested enough to look at them all, and not stop after the first two or three. You want your friends to 'Like' your images, and comment favourably.

So, how is it then, that these objectives can be thwarted, even before your images appear on Facebook?

The Worst Thing You Can Do

The worst thing you can do is upload all the raw images from your camera without any thought. I can guarantee even your most loyal followers will be bored after a cursory look, and will give up after the first few. Not that they would ever tell you!

Many of your photos will likely be repetitive, poorly composed, badly lit and lacking in information.

This has little to do with whether you are a good photographer or not, because these faults can usually be corrected or improved after you’ve clicked the shutter.

If A Job's Worth Doing...

An uncropped picture - all that tarmac adds nothing!

Don’t be repetitive. Don’t be repetitive. Don’t upload three or four images that basically are of the same scene. One will do!

Be frugal with the number of images you upload. Less is more...

Be brutal! If your pictures look boring to you – they’ll look boring to everyone else.

The first thing I do after a walk is sit down with a drink and run through all the images. I then delete a third to a half of them. Then I go into Edit on my phone, and in a few seconds enhance the lighting and colour. Often this is not required if it’s been a bright sunny day.

The tool I use the most is cropping. You can transform a picture using this. By bringing the edges of your picture in, you can improve the composition, and draw the eye towards the focus. If you have to over-crop, the image might pixelate when it’s enlarged. The same can happen if you zoom in too much, if it’s a digital zoom.

The cropped version

After I’ve done that, more deletions might follow, and then from the remainder, I select those I want to upload onto Facebook. It is at this stage, before I 'Post', that I add captions.

It is frustrating when viewing interesting pictures, and wondering; ‘Where exactly is this? Who are they? What is this? What are they doing? What’s happening here?

I don’t put captions on every image. Often a descriptive caption isn’t required. Instead, sometimes I remember something amusing connected with the scene, or a titbit of additional information. I’m a story teller, so I organise my pictures to tell a story – the story of my walk.

A Few Tips For Taking Snaps

There are few things more difficult than taking photographs with a group on the move! The times I’ve stopped to take a few snaps of a landscape, only to turn around and see the group half a mile ahead, disappearing over the horizon! So you have to be quick.

Imagine how it would look framed, for composition

It’s okay to take a shot of the rear of a line of walkers, but also try to take one from the front so their faces are visible.

Basic, but don’t point into the sun.

When taking a scenic shot, imagine you are framing it to hang on your wall.

Including people in your shot gives it context and scale.

Don’t upload an image that’s unflattering to someone, because you’ve caught them in that fraction of a second. I’ve taken a few like that, and if I'd published them, I would have lost a few friends!

Look for unusual things to photograph, and sometimes use different angles, to avoid being ‘samey’. Again, you have to think on the hoof, as you don’t have the luxury of spending too much time thinking about it.

Take a lot of photos – and delete a lot...

So, take aim, have fun, and Keep on Walking...

Read my 5 Star novel: Stench of Evil - a paranormal thriller https://goo.gl/VQOVuS

and the sequel: The Devil in Them  https://goo.gl/aS1cjZ