The Lone Hand

I don't really know what to call this, but you know what I mean...when you just see a hand not attached to anything. You want to make sure that you see an arm attached to a hand when possible. Usually, the only time where it's good to have an `detached' hand is when the hand is the focus.

In the top picture, we could've zoomed out and shown her arm attached to her hand (which we did).
In the bottom picture, if we just saw a bit more of the arm on the left side, it would be okay. As for the hand on the bottom right, it just shouldn't be there:)

Patterns

Oh boy, it's been a while. Here's another basic tip that allows you to get some great photos. I could have a billion examples of patterns here but I'll just show two. There are tons (wow, I like my hyperbole's) of patterns all around you. The shoes of people sitting in a row, spice jars, matchbox cars lined up by your 3 year old son, bouquets held by bridesmaids, items in your fridge door etc. I always like to capture them at an angle, or you can turn your camera to an angle too which I do not do enough. Please note that in the dress picture below, I probably should have cropped the right side because you want the pattern to fill the entire frame.

Cupcakes, rocks, bricks are other great examples. It looks especially good when one particular object (ex. one rock) stands out as it breaks the pattern.

The Cut Off

When taking or cropping a picture, leave the joints in the picture. Do not cut off a picture at a wrist, elbow, knee or ankle. It looks wrong. The picture on the left could be salvageable if I crop them at their biceps but the far right is much better as it's cropped at their thighs.

Picture that cut off the ankles and feet are probably one of my greatest pet peeves. Not saying we don't do it, sometimes you're thinking about a billion other things. But ya, leave the joints in the picture!