A special day for a Photo Op. Are you ready? Check things like the following.

Local hospitals each feature the Mennonite scenes of Waterloo artist Peter Etril Snyder. A lot of them. All excellent.

1 Have you checked the weather

2 Are you interested in a particular time of day

3 Take along light rainwear just in case

4 Will there be an assistant offering wise quiet help. No chatterbox. Extra hands. Perhaps to hold a shade or lighting enhancer/reflector

5 Will the subject matter require aperture emphasis. shutter speed emphasis or manual

6 Some happy direct conversation will settle down and relax your portrait model

7 Can you frame your main subject with architecture fence tree branch

8 Avoid centre shots. Align your subject about one third from either side of frame.

9 Experiment with different facial moods in a shooting session

10 Pets and small children are tricky subjects. Jerky movements.Settle in by waiting for a while. Everyone relaxes a bit. Think about options of angle.

11 Study the magic of backlighting

12 Usually in a face and shoulders close up you will want to know your depth of field tricks. Wide aperture or small f-stop number gives a limited clarity and lots of backdrop blur. Foreground might also be fuzzed out. Even almost to eliminate an interfering chain link fence. Because you really want to emphasize flower blossoms behind or a shiny race car getting final preparations off the track. I have done each of these.

13 Remember that you are really not into the art and science of photography if you are using a smartphone with its little-brain picture taker. Everything gets averaged, takes painful seconds before the click and provides boring, second best results. Realize that fewer stores now carry stock in cameras with modest sophistication at a power price. They all want to push phones.

14. I have found cameras reasonably priced at around ninety dollars at Walmart. Henry’s Photography is there for much larger investments. Canon. Pentax. etc. Nothing there is painless on your wallet. Once I was searching for a unit for a student who was headed for a few months in Australia on an exciting. Tried numerous places. She had only her cell phone. Big grins came with the giving.

15. Believe in yourself. Get greedy for advice and magazines. Believe that there will be improvements, innovations, efficiencies, confidence and daring. Go ahead; tell people that you are a professional photographer. Speak it out with boldness. Watch what happens. You will get there. Sooner than you imagine.

16. Always carry a second camera battery for backup. Always. I remember one day passing a field FULL OF CANADA GEESE. Gear was in the trunk of my car. You guessed it. No power. //$&@!! Ultimately I laughed it off.

17. Read these pointers of advice frequently in order to cement them into your thinking.

18. Travel when you can. Shoot pictures when you can. If you don’t click it, you don’t have it. I have lost tremendous shots fussing with my settings. Delaying. Once it was a beautiful egret in a springtime pond up in Beaver Valley.

19. I have gotten beautiful shots on Facebook from my sister in law ZOE. She has taken to heart all things mentioned in point number 18. She has taught me without really knowing it. Much appreciated. Same goes for a friend BOB GEDDES and my in law RAYMOND DESJARDINS.

20. Study to enhance the artistic effects of full-on sunshine glare. Not to be disappointed by a washout. Contain and limit some of that glare with framing of a wall or tree trunk.

21. There are aspects of mystery and allure to be found in misty early morning settings. Softness. Effective focus blur. Teacher Nigel Danson demonstrates this in his Scottish landscapes.