I am by no means a good photographer, nor do I even use a good camera so I could pretend to be. However, I did recently learn one super awesome trick that I have been using all of the time! It works especially well on automatic digital cameras when you can't manually adjust the settings. The following two pictures were taken seconds apart.
While picture #1 shows the beautiful colors and elements of the sky (which is actually the reason I pulled the camera out to begin with), I love the light effects in picture #2. I tricked the camera by doing the following: In picture #1, I held the camera exactly at the angle where the picture was taken (focusing on the house), and took the picture. This told the camera to adjust for lots of light from the sky and to make the rest of the picture very dark. In picture #2, I tilted the camera down where the sky was not in the picture and focused on the street. I held the focus there and tilted the camera back up to snap the shot.
I believe my point would be further demonstrated if there was something really cool I was actually focusing on (like people or a nice structure), but this is how you "trick" your camera to brighten up the foreground with an extremely bright background so your pictures don't turn out like dark shadows.
Here is another example of this technique.
I just love how it makes everything look a bit more whimsical... or something like that. It is simple, but can add an entirely different look to pictures.
I have another picture that I absolutely love, but I don't have access to it currently. I hope to share it soon!
:::UPDATE:::
This is the picture I wanted to post. I love it.
:::Jonesy:::
