Take pride in your work. This means many things. It means that you don't "settle" for a shot that turns out to be any less than what you envisioned. It means that you only put your best pictures out there for people to see. You learn from your mistakes and use those experiences to create better photographs. You don't decide that a picture is "good enough" because you've spent all day working at it and there's still a shadow in the wrong spot. Always strive to get better, and you will.

Every shot you take - every SINGLE time you press your shutter release, always ask yourself one question. "How can I make this picture better?" Stop and think about all of your options. Don't forget way back in lesson one when you moved all around the subject to get different angles. Perhaps an aperture change to make the focus more selective on your subject? Try moving the subject around in the frame. Would a filter make this better? A different lens? Any time you take a photo, make sure and consider all of these things.

Hopefully you're sick of hearing this by now. If you're not, I'll throw it in once more, just for good measure. USE A TRIPOD! Unless you're in a situation where it is just not possible (and I don't mean "inconvenient" - I mean completely impossible, as in "there's a law against it in your state and you'll go to prison for life if you have a tripod with you") to lug a tripod around with you, use it. It will only take one incident of having an opportunity to take that perfect, once-in-a-lifetime picture and having it come back with signs of camera shake for you to learn why I say this. Believe me, I've been there. Be smarter than most people and start using a tripod now before you have to learn the hard way. On that subject, make sure your tripod has a level built into it and use it! I was involved in a discussion the other day with a group of fellow professional photographers, and one man who mainly shoots landscapes and scenics for a living made a comment that he can never seem to get his horizons straight and is always having to correct them using editing software. I was a bit taken aback that a professional landscape photographer would make this sort of mistake on a regular basis, but I was really floored when the other photographers in the group nodded their heads and said that they, too, wound up with uneven horizons on a regular basis. I believe this all goes back to numbers one and two above: take pride in your work and know what you're taking a picture of before you snap the shutter. Do this now and you've already got a leg up on many of the "pros" out there.

Never settle for an improperly exposed photograph. If you overexpose areas of white or underexpose areas of black, you'll lose details that you can never get back, no matter how much of a whiz you are with photo editing software. When in doubt, bracket your shots by shooting _ stop underexposed and _ stop overexposed in addition to what you think is right. Overexposed white spots in a photograph subconsciously give the viewer the impression they are looking at a light that hurts their eyes. Underexposed black areas with no detail at all are boring and naturally push the viewer's eye away (unless it's an interesting-shaped silhouette - the only exception). To create that photo that is perfect on every level, make sure you have detail in both the bright and dark spots of your images.

Rule five is going to freak a lot of people out: Never crop your images. That's right, you heard me. Never. Why would you need to crop? You checked your image before you hit the shutter, right? You made sure your picture was perfect in every way? That everything in the frame was essential to the photograph? Cameras are built with only a couple of standard ratios. Anyone who has done enough photography is familiar with those normal picture sizes, and a cropped photo jumps out at them, screaming, "Something was wrong with this picture!" If you crop an image, you're changing that ratio and it will stick out like a sore thumb. If you crop an image on both the vertical and horizontal ends so that the frame winds up being the same ratio, then you didn't take enough care in the first place when you composed your picture through your viewfinder, because by zooming in or getting closer, you could have done the same thing without cropping your final image. Think about the size of a 35mm film frame. Not very big, is it? If you want to make an enlarged print, every single bit of that space on the emulsion is extremely valuable in terms of your final image quality. The same goes for digital images - those pixels are precious! If you want a panoramic shot, fine - use photo-stitching software and create a large final version, or use an actual panoramic camera if you're using film. But don't crop. One exception to this rule is the square crop. Sometimes, if you compose an image with that format in mind, a square crop is the best way to present your subject. If you really want to do it right, invest in a 6x6 camera made specifically for that format of film.

Shoot, shoot, shoot. Become familiar with your camera equipment. All of the dials and bells and whistles on your camera, all of your different lenses and all of your other accessories. Knowing in your head what each thing does is a lot different than instinctively knowing how to use your equipment. When that fantastic split-second photo opportunity arises, you can either stop and think about the best way to get the shot or know instinctively what the best way to get the shot is - and get it! The only way to really learn how to do this is to use your camera until it feels like an extension of your body.

I've said this time and time again in the photo assignments: BE CREATIVE! Sometimes when I get in a rut, I take the time to look at some of the best creative photography out there. I buy books and magazines for reference and sometimes just spend an afternoon pouring over them. After looking at fantastic, creative work for a while, my batteries become recharged and my own creativity is increased. I don't know why it works that way, but it does.

Number eight is a hard one to learn. Not everyone learns this and some learn it sooner than others. Ask yourself why you want to take pictures. If you want to take pictures to make yourself happy, as a sort of hobby that gets your mind away from the daily grind of living - work, bills, etc., - wonderful! Photography is great for that. Some people simply enjoy clicking the shutter and having captured a moment in time that they can look back on for years to come. If this is your main interest, go ahead and skip on to number nine. If your goals with photography are a bit loftier than that and you really want to improve and you want other people to enjoy your photography, maybe make some money from it or win photo contests, read on... NEVER disregard a critique. NEVER explain to someone why their criticism of your photograph is wrong. If you worked for a month setting up a shot, bought props and hired models and trained animals, booked a location to shoot in and are convinced that it is the most perfect shot you've ever taken and someone looks at your picture and says, "Wow, that's cool. Maybe you should have moved that big green rock over to the other side of the elephant," here's what you should do: Count to three. Tell the person "thank you for your thoughts." And later, look at the picture and imagine the green rock over on the other side. It doesn't matter that the green rock was seven feet tall, imbedded in the ground, weighed seventy tons and was impossible to move. The viewer doesn't know that. And even if you tell them, it will neither make the picture better nor change the fact that the next viewer isn't going to know that. What matters is the final image. If you're happy with it just as it is, great! I once took a picture of a beautiful church door. It was painted red and full of texture, surrounded by a beautiful cream-colored brick archway that came to a point at the top. The powers-that-be who are in charge of the everyday doings of this church had seen to it to place a really big, ugly, brown plastic light at the top of the point of this archway. I set up my tripod and aligned the bottom of the door just right in my frame, the sides of the frame perfectly along the lines in the brick that went up the sides of the door, and oh-so-carefully placed that ugly brown light just one hair's width outside of the frame of the picture. It's a lovely image, and in fact has sold many times over, even been used on the cover of a book. But shortly after taking the picture, I entered it in a contest. Time and again, I got the comment from people that the picture would have been just perfect if I had just gotten just a smidgen more of the tip of that archway. And they were right! It made no difference that the big, ugly light would have ruined the picture. The picture left them wanting more. So secretly, I'm as happy as can be with the picture. I know I did the best I could, and I enjoy looking at it immensely. In fact, I have it hanging in my office. I'm at peace with being somewhere in the middle of taking my pictures to make myself happy and taking them for others to appreciate, as well as making a living off of them. Sort of like being in a "Photo Zen" zone. At the risk of sounding like a new-age guru-person, I encourage everyone to find this place. If you can't hear a critique of your work without feeling like you have to defend yourself, I encourage you to either learn to do so or keep your photos to yourself for your own personal happiness.

Number nine also has to do with critiques. Search out photos you like and really study them for what you like about them. Look at their compositions and colors. Learn what makes a good photo. Next, find a place - either online or a local camera club or some such - where you can critique photographs. You'll never learn as much from any course as you will from discussing with other people how they can improve their photographs, and reading or hearing critiques that other people make.

Have fun! Never, ever stop having fun with photography! On days when I can't get my studio lighting just right or I'm so busy with the business end of my photography business that I can't remember the last time I took a picture, I like to drop everything and just take my camera out and wave it around until something looks good in the viewfinder. Maybe take my dogs for a walk and drag my camera along with me, taking pictures as we go. The whole reason I decided to make photography my life's work was that I enjoyed it. The day I stop enjoying it will either be the day I quit and go back to my old job working for a crazy boss and doing things I hate or the day I die. (Hopefully the latter...)