Hi and welcome back.
This post has not too much to do about photography technique as it does about the words in the title: Practice!!!!
Want to be a better photographer?
Bring your camera everywhere, shoot a lot, and practice all those techniques you see in blogs, online at Youtube, Strobist.com, etc… No photographer I know ever puts the camera down and leaves it, expecting it to do all the work when picked up.
I practice all the time. It only takes a few minutes. Set up your camera, set up a still life on your kitchen table, then shoot under natural light, shoot under off camera flash, shoot under on camera flash and see the differences.
Pay attention to exposure, see what the settings are and then change the still life.
Practice paying attention to the light in a room, sunrise, sunset, etc. Buy a book or two. Get a magazine that gives you technique hints and tips. And Practice!!!
If you like portraits, get a friend to sit for you.
If you like landscapes, get up early or stay out late for great light
If you like still lifes or food, set up one on a kitchen table: you don’t have to look beyond your refrigerator for subject matter.
The gist: Practice!!
So many new photographers I see or teach go home and put their cameras down till the next time I see or teach them. Wrong. Get to work and you’ll get better quicker.
Here’s an example:
I put my flash on my camera, went to the back porch, and took some test shots. Look at the bell in the foreground. The light on the first one is brighter than the second. I swiveled my flash head around the room and got different results.
The first shot with the flash to the left; the second shot with the flash swiveled to bounce behind me. Practice, practice, practice: it only took 10 minutes start to finish and I got valuable exposure and photography experience.
That’s enough preaching for now.
Till next time, happy shooting.