The other day I was asked to take some pictures of snails which got me thinking about the perils of close-up photography in general.

The first problem we need to look at is, how close the lens will focus. Lenses have a minimum focus distance which varies considerably from lens to lens, some longer zoom lenses have a 'macro' setting and will focus quite close but most lenses will not focus close enough to take the picture on the right.

It's useful to know a little about the inverse square law especially when using flash or studio lights. Basically all the inverse square law says is that an object that is twice the distance from a point source of light will receive a quarter of the illumination. So what it means to us photographers is that if you move your subject from 3 metres away to six metres away, you will need four times the amount of light for the same exposure. This can most easily be achieved by opening the lens aperture two f-stops or using a flashgun that is four times as powerful.

The do's and dont's of photography with a flashgun

Photography is all about light, the direction of the light falling on your subject is most important, you need to look at your subject carefully and watch how the shadows fall.

Getting the colour right can be the most difficult part of photo editing but a little knowledge of how the colours are made will make this much easier. On the right we have a 'colour wheel' to help illustrate the concepts that you need to grasp.

Sharpness describes the clarity of detail in a photo, and can be a valuable creative tool for emphasizing texture. Proper photographic and post-processing technique can go a long way towards improving sharpness, although sharpness is ultimately limited by your camera equipment, image magnification and viewing distance. Two fundamental factors contribute to the perceived sharpness of an image: resolution and acutance.

Although there are now photo library programmes that will adjust the size of your photo automatically when you select print, a little knowledge will put you in control of the process, enabling you to be much more precise.

Photography is all about shapes, textures and lighting. Sooner or later you might start thinking that there are some interesting shapes and textures to be found in the human form, if so then you need to persuade people to model for you.

Bit depth quantifies how many unique colors are available in an image's color palette in terms of the number of 0's and 1's, or "bits," which are used to specify each color. This does not mean that the image necessarily uses all of these colors, but that it can instead specify colors with that level of precision. For a grayscale image, the bit depth quantifies how many unique shades are available. Images with higher bit depths can encode more shades or colors since there are more combinations of 0's and 1's available.

Very often, when we upload our pictures to the computer from the camera and first look at them on the screen, they will appear dull and lifeless like photo No.1 on the right.

In 1865, the photographer James Mudd presented a paper entitled ‘A Photographer’s Dream’ at the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society (Photographic Section).

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is blessed with some of the most dramatic waterfalls in the country. Often, I’ll return to the same sites to shoot the same waterfalls I might have shot years ago. My techniques keep getting better, and sometimes, weather conditions are better one year from the other years. My tip: Never be hesitant to return to the same sites you’ve visited before. Practice can make perfect! With repeat visits, you’ll learn the area better, familiarize yourself with the best lighting conditions for the subject, and compose your shots differently than in the past.

As a new photographer, these are some of the ideas that have helped get me going. 1. Don’t go crazy buying the most expensive equipment right away. It’s possible to get very nice photos with an inexpensive point and shoot. See these examples on Flickr. The more photos you take, the more you’ll know about what kind of camera to get when it’s time to upgrade. 2. Consider a tripod. On the other hand, an inexpensive tripod is worth getting, especially if you have shaky hands like mine. When I got a tripod, my satisfaction with my shots skyrocketed. For even more stability, use your camera’s timer function with a tripod (read our introduction to tripods). 3. Keep your camera with you all the time. Photo ops often come when you least expect it. If you can keep your equipment relatively simple - just a small camera bag and a tripod - you might be able to take advantage of some of those unexpected opportunities. Or, if your phone has a camera, use it to take “notes” on scenes you’d like to return to with your regular camera.

The following tutorial on Processing RAW Files using Adobe Lightroom was submitted by John Short from www.canonphoto.co.uk and www.johnshort.co.uk Why do we read so often then it is best to shoot your image in raw and not as jpegs? The first image in this tutorial is a jpeg of a Gannet where I have deliberately blown the highlights. One of the problems with a jpeg image is once exposed it is processed in your camera and the raw data is lost. If you have blown the highlights the information is simply not there for you to recover in your favourite processing application. The following images are the basic steps in processing a raw file and I hope will demonstrate to you the benefits of shooting in raw mode. If you want to try to emulate my final image using the jpeg file and your favourite image editing software be my guest. It will be interesting to see what can be achieved in comparison with working with the raw file. Adobe Lightroom is not just a processing application for raw files, it is also a library for storing, retrieving and searching for images. I have 20,000 raw files on my computer and Lightroom has catalogued them all in the library for instant display. Images can be filed by title,date metadata and so on. This aspect of Lightroom is really for a different tutorial and if there is interest I will put one together but for today let us concentrate on processing your raw files.