We all are guilty of it, you may want people to think every picture you take is incredibly interesting but you are not kidding anybody. Everybody takes plenty of boring pictures. You see all these amazing pictures online on Facebook, 500px, Flickr, etc. and if you’re like me, you get inspired and want to create your own amazing shots just like the ones you see online.

One way you can add interest to your pictures is by understanding what and why the human brain thinks something is interesting. Then incorporate those traits into your compositions.

• Look Around – When you first show up on a scene you want to shoot, before you even raise your camera to your eye, walk around and check out the area from every angle. Find the best possible composition before you start snapping pictures. Look for backgrounds that contrast the subject. Make sure there are not power lines hanging through your shot. Take the extra time to look around for that amazing perspective and don’t just stand with the rest of the tourists, and take the same old snapshot that everybody else does.
  

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• Leading Lines – Leading lines are the edges of objects that run towards the horizon. Leading lines can be anything from roads, rivers, trails, train tracks, branches, and anything else that has a line. A leading line gives the viewers eye something to follow through the frame. You can subconsciously tell the viewer where to look in the picture by using leading lines. Place the main subject of your picture at the end of the leading line and you will guide the viewers eye towards that subject. The picture will be easier to understand and it will be more comfortable to the viewer. Look for those lines next time you are out shooting
  

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• Vanishing Point – Vanishing points are one of the first thing you learn when you take an intro drawing class. A vanishing point is a point on the horizon where your leading lines may point. If you take a picture looking down a long railroad track, eventually it will look like the rails touch each other. This is the vanishing point where those lines meet. Composing your shot so you are looking towards a vanishing point will make your pictures more interesting.
  

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• Find the Light – Learn how to see the light, see how it shines through the trees, how it bounces off of buildings and Windows, how the light can fill a scene and give it a beautiful warm feeling. Yeah is the light you want to find, and incorporate into your pictures. When most people travel to someplace new, they walk around during the day visiting landmarks when the light is at its worst. The sun is directly overhead casting dark shadows  all over everything. It is during those kind of lighting conditions is when your camera has the most difficulty capturing the full dynamic range of the scene. In other words, the camera can’t see into the bright highlights of the scene and the dark shadows at the same time. Either one will be overexposed,  or the shadows will be underexposed. Instead, go scout around for those locations during the day that you want to photograph, and come back later in the evening or early in the morning to create your picture in that beautiful golden hour light.
  

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• Have a Main Subject – Try to incorporate an object in your picture that the viewers eye will repeatedly come back to. Something like a building, a person, an animal, a mountain, just anything. The viewer will feel much more comfortable when viewing your picture if they can take their eye back to the main subject to rest for a moment. If you have no main subject, the viewers eye will search aimlessly around the picture looking for something else to focus on. This is a great time to practice the rules of composition, Rule of Thirds, Leading Lines, Image Balance, etc. Place a building in the

  

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• Remove Distractions – Try to get into the habit of looking at the background, the foreground, and scanning the edges of the frame for any distractions. Look for objects that come into the frame, any bright spots will show up in the background and cause the viewers eye to get distracted. When trees, poles, or power lines are positioned behind the head of a person, it will look like they have wires coming out of their head. Instead, step a foot to the side to change the background slightly. Try to keep the clean as possible. When the image of clutter and distraction, the viewer will get confused and ultimately not like the image as much.
  

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• Bad Weather – There is no such thing as bad weather. Rainy storm clouds, snow storms, hail, and fog can make for some of the most interesting photos. If anything, the worst weather to take pictures in is on a bright sunny day with blue skies and not a cloud in the sky. Those days in my opinion are the worst conditions to take pictures in. If you’re out taking pictures in the rain, it gives a whole new look and feel to your picture. The rain makes everything it touches more saturated and reflective causing lights to bounce off of every surface in a different way than it would if it were just dry. If you are shooting street photography, the rain makes the people act differently than they would if it were a clear day. Someone might be running from their car into a building, people will be holding umbrellas, A sudden wind gust can make a person scream and if you are paying attention you can capture that look on their face as The rain blows into their face causing them to squint. The same goes for snow and all other types of foul weather. Fog will give any seen a ominous somewhat creepy feeling. The viewer can almost feel The chill in the air when looking at the picture. It is the photographers job to capture the feeling of the scene and convey it to the viewer. And the nasty weather can be amazingly interesting to have in your image.
  

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• Tell a story – It is easy to make a pretty picture. It is much harder to tell a story with a single image. For as long as people have walked the earth, they always had a love for storytelling. It is only just recently in human history have we had the ability to tell stories by other means, movies, TV shows, video games, etc. but going back thousands and thousands of years before that people only had their words to entertain and educate others. So photos that can convey a story to the viewer appeal to the most basic reptilian corner of the human brain and people love stories. As a photographer, it is your duty to try to communicate a story with your image to the beer videographers have it easy, they can use hundred and thousands of images to communicate A story to their viewers. But photographers only have that one image use it wisely. Street photography is a great place to practice telling a story with a single image. You may see someone walking down the street in a brightly colored suit, and another person might be looking at that person in the bright sued with a funny look on their face. If you snap a picture of that exchange, you would be telling the story of this interesting person that draws everybody’s attention in the area. Capturing peoples eyes helps to communicate peoples emotions and thought processes. They say the eyes are the gateway to the soul, and it is absolutely true.
  

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• The Human Element – Incorporating people into your picture is a great way to add interest to your image. People are fascinated with walking other people, you can go to the heart of any city and sit there for hours just watching all the different people going about their daily lives right in front of you. Adding people into your pictures helps the viewers brain understand what is going on in the picture, gives them the ability to relate to the subject, tells a story about the person in the frame, shows how large or how small your subject is. And holds the viewers attention for longer. This is why street photography is so powerful and emotional, if there were no people in the street photography you would just have boring pictures of streets and sidewalks and buildings, it is the people that brings the image alive. If there is one thing you can do to give your image more impact and make it more interesting, it would be to incorporate people.

  

• Fill the Frame – Get close to your subject, Fill the frame as much as you can with your subject. With wildlife, you can get a shot of that bald eagle take from hundreds of feet away but the eagle will just be a small dot in your picture, or you can get as close as possible and as tight as you can  to get a picture of the eagle filling the entire shot. You will be able to see all the little details of the bird, it’s feathers, it’s eyes, etc. the result will be an image that is incredible to look at and causes an emotional reaction in the viewer.
  

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• A Different Perspective – Try to find a different way to see your subject. This may sound similar to the first hint tip I shared but this is a little different. Is there any water puddles or a lake nearby? If so then find where your subject is reflecting in the water and take a picture from that perspective. Don’t just keep your camera at 5 feet in the air where 99% of the other pictures out there are taking that, be different and move your camera all around, higher, lower, all over the place. Find small little details and showcase those. Most people will just stand in one spot and take The exact same picture as 1000 photographers before them, and another thousand photographers after. That does not mean you have to shoot the same picture as everybody else. Be different, see different, Think Different. You are your own creative individual person, stand out from the crowd and create something that no one has ever seen or done before. This is how you get noticed. If you take the exact same picture as everybody else, you’ll just get lost in the crowd. Be original, be yourself.

There you have it, those are some my top tips for adding interest to your photos. There are more things you can do, But you are going to have to figure them out for yourself. That is all what being an artist is all about, somebody could give you the paint and the brushes but it is up to you to create something beautiful. If somebody else told you what to draw, paint, carve, photograph, build, than is it really art?

Let me know what your tips are, head on over to the Photo Lowdown Facebook page and let me hear from you.