Content is KING !


“People don’t read, especially when it comes to web and mobile” – I said that!

Content is important:

• Content adds value
• Content is part of the user experience

With ‘Mobile First’ design philosophy coming into power, content is increasingly gaining importance, but ironically much of the mobile first design philosophy fails due to one big reason: CONTENT. Content failure is not a new phenomenon and can be seen even in web specific designs. If, we address the root cause of the problem, it can be attributed to difference in user behavior towards content for website and mobile.
Keeping this in mind, here are some guidelines to create effective digital content. These guidelines are applicable for both mobile and web content strategy:


1. If the first 160 characters of content do not sound meaningful, rest of content cannot be useful!
With the ever reducing attention span of readers, you need to ensure that the audience is impressed with the first 160 characters of content you write. If an idea cannot be told succinctly there will be no one listening to it, and if there is no one listening, the idea is useless. Hence, it makes more sense to put in all the skills and make those first 160 characters impressive!




2. If everything is useful, then everything is useless. True or False?
True. If you think that all the content is useful for a website’s target audience, then you are surely mistaken. We usually tend to fill in so much content that everything seems to be useless and the user tends to drift away.




3. Use scan-able keywords
Every user opens a site with something in mind. If that something is not scan-able or searchable, it is highly unlikely that the user will stay for more.




4. Start with conclusions and recommendations
‘Inverted pyramid’ style of writing is the key for good content on web and mobile. People want to know quickly about everything; no one has time to read a novel




5. Attention grabbing headings, meaningful subheadings
Headings are used to grab attention and sub-headings are used to further utilize that attention span. Keeping the sub-heading simple without jargons and to the point, helps to gain the reader’s trust as well. Jargon, complex terms, clever lines are meant for the main heading. Keep them out of the rest of the content!




6. A picture is worth 1000 words, but we don’t want 1000 words. Do we?
The intention is to keep it simple, neat and easy to download. A picture may seem to be the best option for visual appeal and representation of an idea, but it increases the size of the content. With download speeds varying unpredictably, pictures sometimes are a blot to user experience.

Types of Web Hosting Services

There are various types of web hosting services available to host your website.  Depending on your needs, you could choose from one of several web hosting solutions and therefore it is important to research and evaluate the services to pick the correct one.

There are a variety of web hosting service options which companies and individuals may choose from, in fact the choices are sometimes overwhelming.

1. Shared Hosting
2. Dedicated Server Hosting 
3. Virtual Private Server (VPS) 
4. Cloud Hosting 
5. Reseller Hosting 
6. Colocation Web Hosting 
7. Free Web Hosting

1. SHARED HOSTING :

In a shared hosting environment, One’s website is setup on the same server machine as many other websites. This includes sharing the physical server and the software applications within the server such as HDD, memory or CPU. Shared hosting services are affordable because the cost to operate the server is shared between you and these other owners.

Shared Hosting is affordable but you must be sure that the hosting package you web hosting company is providing you actually supports what you need, scripting languages, applications, control panel etc.

Advantage:

The main being price – they are usually the cheapest and most affordable solutions for an online presence. Since the company hosts tens of websites on one server, they are able to pass the savings to the consumer. Performance could be a downside, but with hardware getting cheaper and software getting better, this aspect might not be relevant for everyone.

Disadvantage:

The biggest disadvantage of a shared hosting account is that you’re at the mercy of the other sites on your server. A really popular site may adversely affect the performance of your own site. On the other hand, if you’re the most popular site on the server, you get to use a super server for a very low price.

2. DEDICATED SERVER :

This is a service where each and every customer is assigned an entire server without having to share it with any other clients. The customer can also host more than one website on this server. The customer here is totally responsible for managing his own webpage. This is a more reliable form of hosting that shared hosting. This allows for faster performance, as you have all the server’s resources entirely, without sharing with other website owners. However, this also means that you will be responsible for the cost of server operation entirely. This is a good choice for websites that requires a lot of system resources, or need a higher level of security.

Advantage:

When you purchase a dedicated hosting package, you have access to the complete server. Dedicated packages are usually tailored to the amount of bandwidth, memory, and hard drive space that you might need and they allow for CPU intensive applications to operate without hindering other sites or being conflicted.

Disadvantage:

The extra functionality and control does come at a higher monetary cost – dedicated hosting solutions are more expensive than the virtual options. But they are providing you with a lot more in terms of resources. Most dedicated hosting packages will involve some sort of a setup fee as it is more time consuming to setup a complete server than it is to create a hosting account in a shared environment.

3. VIRTUAL PRIVATE SERVER (VPS) :

Virtual private servers share one physical server but acts like multiple, separate servers. Basically VPS hosting is like a shared hosting with few main differences. In shared hosting you will share your resources but in VPS, every user share the same server with many users but each user has a small operation system that can be rebooted and managed independently. A VPS is a stepping stone between shared hosting and getting your own dedicated machine.

In a Virtual Private Server you share system resources like the CPU and RAM with other users but the resources are allocated in such a way that you cannot tell that the system has anyone else on it, much like a dedicated server. So resources are usually setup in such a way that each hosting client is only allowed to use an allocated percent, meaning that resources assigned to you will always available to you. Each virtual server looks and acts like a dedicated server.

Advantages:

VPS hosting is able to bring many advantages including the ability to install any software that you want as well as being able to host your websites in your own space without the worry of being affected by any other users or websites that are hosted on the same server as you; the price of VPS hosting is also attractive to many who are in need of a dedicated server, but are unable to afford one. VPS Hosting also provides better uptime than shared web hosting

Disadvantages:

Though VPS hosting might have numerous advantages, there could be a few flaws. The maintenance problem of a virtual server is the main disadvantage as each of it has its own operating system. Hence maintenance gets tough. Responsibility of security, updates and maintenance lies with the web. Hence it becomes quite difficult. Secondly, certain web hosts fail to provide the actual resource they promised. Since most of the servers do not use its full resources, it becomes difficult to handle such operations at a peak level.

Another main disadvantage of VPS hosting is the fact that in some cases the CPU of the main server is not equally shared between all the hosted VPS, meaning that it is open to compromise from rogue VPS, and if done correctly a rogue VPS could easily bring down the whole node if it ends up using too much of the CPU.

4. CLOUD HOSTING :

Cloud Hosting refers to a fairly new hosting technology that lets hundreds of individual servers work together so that it looks like one giant server. The idea is that as the need grows, the hosting company can just add more commodity hardware to make an ever larger grid or cloud.

Cloud Hosting is a dedicated, high performance, analytic database cluster that is open to businesses, on a pay-per-use, for a monthly fee. The key feature is that you will never pay for more storage and bandwidth than you need because of the flexibility.

Advantages:

Cloud computing does give a company a lot of flexibility for growth. With cloud computing you can set up servers as you need them to help deal with sudden bursts in your business. A company can quickly expand their cloud infrastructure by adding more servers or adding more networks to meet their new business needs. This is great for start-ups that are not sure what the future holds or where their company will be in a couple of months. If, all of a sudden, business starts to take off for you company, cloud computing can keep up with your company’s growth faster than a dedicated server.

Disadvantages:

As your website start to generate more traffic, the more bandwidth your business starts to eat up and the more space it will require. Your monthly bill can start to grow and with a payment method that is not constant, it can become overwhelming quite quickly. You will also need to depend on third-party to safeguard the security and privacy of data and information

5. RESELLER HOSTING :

Reseller web host services allow the clients to become web hosts. One gets a large amount of space and bandwidth that can be divided up among as many sites as the user wants to put on his account. A reseller account is placed on the same server with other reseller accounts, just like with shared hosting but there are fewer accounts. Most of the resellers are web consultant, web developers and web designers.

Advantages:

The first advantage of reseller hosting is the amount of server resources that are available to you. Even if you decide not to resell the hosting service, you can use these server resources to operate your own web sites and save money in the process. However, unlike other web hosting plans, reseller hosting gives you the ability to allocate these server resources to your clients seamlessly. In fact, it even gives you the tools needed to build a web hosting site, create client accounts, designate hosting plans and even bill your customers on a scheduled basis.

Another benefit of reseller hosting is that it offers a great deal of flexibility to the reseller to allocate their server resources to their clients seamlessly. For this reason, instead of getting them from the original web hosting company itself, there are more and more webmasters choose their solutions from web hosting resellers today.

Disadvantage:

In the reseller hosting, you have to share the server with many others. Thus your website would suffer from problems like slow traffic time and might face downtime sometimes. It might result in you losing the customers and business too.

As your website is hosted on a shared server, therefore you are prone to security problems as there can be many hacker sites also hosted in the same server who might want to damage your server. You might find a spammer to use up the bandwidth and you losing the business.

Reseller hosting accounts only provide limited IP addresses with which you can host your clients’ websites. Some clients may request multiple IP addresses, in which case you would need to provide justification.

6. COLOCATION WEB HOSTING :

In this type of hosting, you will purchase your own server and have it housed at a web host’s facilities. Similar to dedicated webhosting service, but the user owns the collocated machine. The webhosting company offers the physical space for the server and takes care of the Internet connection and electricity. In most cases, the colocation provider may provide little to no support directly for their client’s machine. In most cases for colocation, the customers have their own administrator visiting the data center to do any hardware upgrades, apart of remote administration for software.

Advantages:

The biggest advantage of colocation is the cost of bandwidth and associated resources. You have full control over the hardware and system part.  Most of these facilities maintain redundant systems and multiple backbones to enable incredibly fast internet connections. In most cases, the monthly fee for a colocation service is significantly cheaper than a dedicated. You’ll have physical access to your server should you need to perform upgrades or administrative tasks that require your physical presence. This is not the case with most managed server hosts.

Disadvantages:

The biggest drawback to colocation is perhaps that a center that’s both reliable and convenient is hard to find.  If you have a staff of your own to manage the systems, you want to find a facility that is relatively close to your business to reduce travel time when upgrades need to be made.  Colocation centers are typically built in large cities near major network hubs. If your business is far from such a place, colocation can be impractical. This is a factor that somewhat limits geographic options.

Even though the bandwidth may be cheaper in some circumstances, spikes in bandwidth can drastically increase your costs. Collocation also requires far more startup capital than a managed hosting solution.

If you’re business and staffs are far from the collocation center, management can be a challenge. You may have to pay extra for the colocation center to manage your equipment for you.

7. FREE WEB HOSTING :

As the old saying goes, “There is no free lunch”. The same goes for web hosting but if you can live with with limited web space, banners, popups, and other restrictions you can get certainly find “free” hosting.

Free web hosting can be a good choice when you just want to build a non-critical website for fun. Very often in a free hosting environment, connection speed is slow, website can be down frequently, and advertising banners is automatically added to your website. Some companies require you to purchase your domain name to receive free hosting services from them, while others offer you a free subdomain under them, such as [yourname.webhost.com]. Be careful as you will not be able to transfer these free subdomains.

Advantage:

The main advantage associated with free web hosting services is that there is no cost.  In this day and age, with the economy the way it is, most everyone is searching out ways to save money.  Choosing a free host, over a host that costs, is one way for website owners to do just that!

Another advantage associated with free web hosting is that most free providers also provide their customers with pre-made website layouts that are really easy to use.  Most people will choose free web hosting for personal web pages, and often do not have the knowledge to set up a site where they must use software programs in order to design their site.  Free web hosts are great choices for these website owners.

Disadvantage:

With free hosts be prepared to see your website online for the least period of time. The downtime of your website will be never ending if you are using free hosting. There is less space available and the band width is also low. You do not get multiple email accounts for managing your website with free web hosting service. Many times, very little storage is provided. There will be too many advertisements in your website. The chances of being spammed and hacked are always high with a free web hosting company. A free web hosting company truly proves the statement you get what you pay for. You pay nothing so you get nothing in return.

Search Engines does not index such website. Directory does not allow such website. Ad sense is normally not available on such website. It means if you want to earn money through internet, then this is another major disadvantage.

Finally, one of the biggest disadvantages associated with free web host servers is the fact that many of them do not offer customer service of any kind.  This means if you have problems or difficulty with your website, there will be no one available to address the problem.  It is very rare you will even be notified as to down town.

Best Practices for Ranking #1

Curiously, though perhaps not entirely surprisingly to experienced SEOs, the truth is that on-page optimization doesn't necessarily rank first in the quest for top rankings. In fact, a list that walks through the process of actually getting that first position would look something more like:

1. Accessibility - content engines can't see or access cannot even be indexed; thus crawl-ability is foremost on this list.
2. Content - you need to have compelling, high quality material that not only attracts interest, but compels visitors to share the information. Virality of content is possibly the most important/valuable factor in the ranking equation because it will produce the highest link conversion rate (the ratio of those who visit to those who link after viewing).
3. Basic On-Page Elements - getting the keyword targeting right in the most important elements (titles, URLs, internal links) provides a big boost in the potential ability of a page to perform well.
4. User Experience - the usability, user interface and overall experience provided by a website strongly influences the links and citations it earns as well as the conversion rate and browse rate of the traffic that visits.
5. Marketing - I like to say that "great content is no substitute for great marketing." A terrific marketing machine or powerful campaign has the power to attract far more links than content may "deserve," and though this might seem unfair, it's a principle on which all of capitalism has functioned for the last few hundred years. Spreading the word is often just as important (or more so) than being right, being honest or being valuable (just look at the political spectrum).
6. Advanced/Thorough On-Page Optimization - applying all of the above with careful attention to detail certainly isn't useless, but it is, for better or worse, at the bottom of this list for a reason; in our experience, it doesn't add as much value as the other techniques described.

Learn from ignorance

Joy and sorrow, day and night are inevitable. Sorrow or sadness is the offspring of ignorance. 


Ignorance is symbolised by darkness. Darkness has its own importance, without darkness, without night, the circadian rhythm of life will go for a toss. Biological systems will lose their balance; so to make your life perfect, to maintain complete equilibrium, night or darkness is essential. Therefore, if sadness comes, it's there for a purpose. When night comes, it has a purpose and the purpose is to strike a balance. If you don't sleep for two or three days nothing would work properly in your system. Ignorance is there and it is a very important part of the game. Ignorance exists because of Divine will. 


You have to change your attitude towards happiness and sadness; try not to see sadness with a negative attitude and don't see happiness in an extremely positive light. When you are sad, it only proves that there is a lack of understanding of something. With your misunderstanding you are creating that atmosphere of sadness; you are attaching too much importance to a situation or too little, so you are creating sadness with your lack of understanding. 


How to get rid of sadness? Get rid of that attitude which creates divisions and says, "This is very good and that is very bad; this is day, this is night". In reality, day and night are not two, they are one, sadness and happiness are not two; they are one. Death and life are not two they are one, but we have to evolve to perceive that. 


Cultivate understanding, consciousness, knowledge and awareness of life, and these can awaken in you a healthy system to help you learn to deal with every situation with perfect balance. We are enslaved by our senses; we tend to lead an impulsive life. Use the senses, but don't let them overwhelm you. 


When you experience sadness, it could help you to look within, take you deeper inside, it sharpens your perception. Sorrow comes to give you possibilities of betterment in life. Sometimes you see people become happy and they lose their balance, or become too sad and lose their balance. Such situations bring with them joy or sorrow, we have to learn how to treat them, how to deal with them. They come to help us evolve; they have a purpose. It is time to progress and with that learning attitude, deal with both situations; then joy and sorrow will both help you and give you something constructive. 

Helvetica Font - Free Download.

Today, more people than ever before are looking for the difficult to find helvetica TTF free download....... Helvetica is one of the most popular typefaces of all time. It was designed by Max Miedinger in 1957 for the Haas foundry of Switzerland (the name is derived from Helvetia, the Latin name for Switzerland).


Helvetica remains one of the most popular fonts on the Internet as well as on many forms of documentation. This is because it is very much a plain looking font, but with a little touch of style, such as the small twist at the bottom of the lowercase "t", or the shorter curved ends at the bottom of letters like lowercase "j" and "y". Helvetica font is used on most public signs and on the majority of public documents and periodicals across the world.



---> Helvetica - Downloand

--->Vista Fonts (calibri, cambria, candara, consolas, constantia, corbel)


40 Excellent Logos Created with Helvetica
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/40-excellent-logos-created-with-helvetica/


It’s over fifty years old, it’s the most widely used font ever, and it has recently become the subject of its own movie. We’re talking about the world’s most recognizable font: Helvetica. Its relevance in design through the years and even today seems unbeatable.


The appeal for a distinctive, professional and timeless typeface has never dwindled and it keeps gaining more followers day by day. Love it or hate it, with its multitude of styles and versions, Helvetica is here to stay.


From airlines, to car companies to the largest software company, Helvetica’s use in logos throughout the world remains as strong as ever. In this article we’ll take a look at 40 excellent logos created using Helvetica.

Improve Your Photos 60 Seconds at a Time

Light

Dancing with light

• Light from the side brings out shapes, textures and structures. That’s why early morning and evening are rich times to photograph.
• With the sun behind your subject, you get some of the most dramatic visual effects … but exposure could be tricky to get right. Try it anyway!
• When the sun is high and the light is hard, don’t fight it to try to get it all. Concentrate on exposing the bright parts properly and work with the shapes of shadows.
• For light and shadow effects you need the sun, of course, but colours are often more intense on half-sunny or overcast days.

The color of color

• Natural light is white, while artificial light is often shades of yellow, orange or green.
• Our eyes naturally adjust to colored or tinted light sources to make them appear white and so will your digital camera but only within certain limits
• If you want warm-colored pictures work earlier or later in the day when natural light tends to be more orange.
• This image shows warm light from an evening sun but bluish shadows from the cloudless sky

Mastering flash

• Balance the flash with day light for stunning results. Your camera may offer a ’slow flash’ or ’synchro flash’ or ‘daylight synchro’ setting.
• Direct flash on groups of people produces better-looking images than direct flash on a single person.
• The latest cameras allow you to set high ISO speeds e.g. ISO 800 which can help avoid using flash altogether.
• Avoid red-eye by turning up or providing more light in the room.
• If you use your camera’s red-eye reduction setting when taking flash photographs of people you avoid red-eye, but there’s a delay in taking the shot which may cause you to miss the moment.

Choosing your time

• Low or cross lighting at dawn or dusk produces wonderful lighting and colors.
• At dawn and dusk there are natural shadows to help give depth and form to your subject.
• For early evening shots, you will need longer shutter times i.e. longer exposure to make up for the low light. This makes it likely your photographs could be blurry due to camera shake, so lean your camera on something - anything steady - to keep still during exposure.
• Don’t be afraid to point the lens at a setting sun , but whatever you do avoid looking at the sun directly, especially through the viewfinder of your camera.

Landscaping your photos

Composition essentials

• It’s best to keep your horizons level in your photographs, otherwise your shots will appear crooked (unless that’s what you want!).
• Keep the main points of interest away from the centre, and from the extreme edges - better, still, try placing them in different parts of the image and see which works best.
• Don’t shoot everything from a standing position. Look for unusual angles by changing yours (and the camera’s position).
• Better to avoid completely empty space in your photos.

Framing the lines

• Don’t be afraid to use take portrait photographs - that is, with the camera on its side.
• Use natural features in the environment to create a frame for your subject or to lead the eye through the image.
• Zoom in to create a sense of intimacy. Remove from your shots elements like the sun or the sky, which give a feeling of open space.
• Experiment with framing. Try framing your shots with lots of foreground and very little sky, or lots of sky and very little land.

Zooming around

• Zooming-out allows you to capture more of the view.
• A wide-angle lens will keep everything in focus while helping to maximise the ‘depth of field’, or feeling of depth in your shots.
• Zooming-in will flatten the sense of perspective and make distant objects appear closer together.
• Zooming-in will also affect the amount of your picture that is in focus allowing you to isolate details against an out-of-focus foreground and/or background.
• Be careful to avoid camera shake when zoomed right in, as tiny movements in your hands become magnified.

Prospecting the perspective

• Create perspective by using the lines and shapes within the shot to draw the eye.
• Tall buildings can appear to ‘lean back’ when photographed. Getting something in the foreground of your shot helps balance this.
• Increase the sense of perspective by using a wide-angle lens and adding foreground interest.
• A low viewpoint and wide-angle setting helps to contrast the size and shape of objects in interesting ways.

Foregrounding

• Foreground is the area that is closest to the camera: the stronger it is, the stronger the rest of the image.
• An object in the foreground first invites the eye, then lead the viewer deeper into the photo.
• Include foreground objects to add a sense of scale and perspective
• Experiment with allowing the foreground to totally dominate the photo

Cool proportions

• The central part of your scene usually draws the camera like a magnet so it ends up in the centre - try resisting that tendency
• Place the main point of interest towards the sides of your photographs for more dynamic compositions
• Place your horizon near the top or bottom of your shots to add emphasis to the ground or to the sky
• In this picture you can see there is a smallish amount of sky while the rocks have been placed high in the image to allow the silhouette of the trees to be significant.

People with you

Lighting faces

• The soft light you get on overcast days is especially good for photographing people, as it delivers the best skin tones
• Side or ‘cross’ lighting is more interesting because it gives depth and form to your portrait sitter
• Keep backgrounds and other distractions to the minimum so that the viewer can concentrate on the face
• In this picture, soft light from a window lights the faces of the girls from the side, while a zoomed-in setting throws the foreground face out of focus.

Depth of feeling

• Use your zoom lens to shorten the ‘depth of field’ (depth sharpness) in your photograph, and throw the background out of focus. This adds emphasis to your subject.
• Use your zoom lens to fill your photograph, rather than leaving your main point of interest floating in space.
• Zooming in will flatten perspective, which generally produces a more flattering shot of your subject.
• In this picture, a zoomed-in setting focuses on the girl, throwing the foreground objects out of focus.

Natural frames

• Use a person’s surroundings to be a natural picture frame the photo
• People will often smile and pose stiffly for their portrait: if you don’t want a smile take two or more pictures - a second or two after a smile, the pose relaxes and you have a more natural shot.
• Look for the natural junctions of the human body (where it seems natural to ‘cut-off’) if you are not including the whole person in the shot.
• Soft light is easiest to work with: try sitting your subject near a window.

Childish tricks

• Get the children used to you and the camera by firing off lots of shots first.
• For small children , pre-focus the camera. This is done on most digital cameras by pressing down halfway on the shutter button. Then move yourself backwards and forwards with the child to keep the shot in focus.
• Get down on your hands and knees to stay level with your subject and appear less intimidating.
• Use something to draw the child’s attention away from the fact that they are having their photograph taken.

Coloring the essentials

Bolder colors

• Redder colors will create a warmer feel for your shots than blues or greens.
• color affects the way we look at pictures, so try to use color creatively in your shots.
• Look for images that contain contrasting colors, such as red and green or yellow and purple, to add tension or drama.
• Using shades of the same colors will create a sense of harmony.

The best light is free

• Bright sunlight gives colors a more intense or ’saturated’ feel.
• Midday light has a bluer quality, which can give photos a harsher feel.
• Try to place strong colors against large areas of even tone or color - this helps bring out their intensity
• Look for color contrasts - red with blues and greens, for example.
• Photographs taken at the beginning or end of the day will have a warmer tone due to the natural orangeness of the light.

Emotional colors

• Different dominant colors lead your viewer towards different emotions which impacts on the way your shot is experienced
• Yellow is associated with happiness, but orange may moves us toward concern - hence the use of amber as a warning light.
• Red is the universal color of warning. Use it with caution - a little bit of red in your shot goes a long way!
• Greens and blues usually have a calming effect, hence their association with landscape
• The many colors in this shot are held together by the large areas of yellows, giving it an unmistakeable sunny Mediterranean mood.

Composition

Lines of force

• You can create a sense of direction using naturally occurring lines.
• Slanting or ‘oblique’ lines imply movement, action and change.
• Curved lines or S-shaped lines imply quiet, calm and sensual feelings.
• Lines that converge imply depth, scale and distance, for example, the outer edges of a road converge as it disappears into the distance, giving a two-dimension image three-dimensional depth.
• Repetitive elements create a sense of rhythm, which is often more interesting if the rhythm is broken by a missed element.

Thirds

• Imagine two horizontal and two vertical lines equally dividing your shot, then place subjects on the lines or where they intersect with each other: this can be a help in deciding on compositions
• Place your horizon on the top or bottom line to add emphasis to the ground or to the sky respectively.
• In this picture, the composition combines color contrasts with proportions closer to another principle, the Golden Section, which gives pleasing proportions.
• Just pushing your composition slightly to one side so it feels a little uncomfortable can give your photos a dynamic it wouldn’t otherwise have.

Focusing away

• The human eye is drawn to elements that are in focus, and this will influence how your photo is seen.
• Auto-focus (standard on most digital cameras) will focus on what is in the centre of the frame. Use pre-focus to move your subject away from the centre of the frame. (This is done on most digital cameras by pressing down halfway on the shutter button.)
• Use your zoom lens to reduce the ‘depth of field’ (sense of depth) and throw the background out of focus. This will emphasise any in-focus element in the foreground.
  Photo © Wendy Ang

Being ready

Drive your motor

• Take lots of pictures. With digital cameras shots cost you hardly anything at all.
• Move around as you photograph to experiment and give yourself plenty of choice later.
• Stay alert for that chance-of-a-lifetime shot: keep your camera turned ON, keep your mind switched to ON.
• In this picture, the golden eagle put its wing on the falconer for only a few very short seconds, and the falconer grinned for even less time!

Vantage points

• It is almost always worth clambering up a wall or steps to get a little higher - but don’t get yourself into trouble with authorities.
• You may also have to wait for the best light.
• And you might have to wait for a composition of passing people to arrange itself
• The best position may depend on the zoom setting that you choose.
• In this picture, I had to wait nearly thirty minutes for everyone to get themselves into position.

Shutter lag

• Shutter lag is the time a digital camera needs to capture a picture after you have pressed the shutter button.
• Reduce shutter lag by focusing beforehand, hold the shutter button down half-way or half-pressure and wait for the moment.
• Reduce shutter lag by turning off any unnecessary automatic features such as red-eye reduction.
• In this picture, the only way to catch the air force jets at the right instant was to release the shutter just before they reached their ideal positions.

Always ready

• If you see a good picture you may be early: an even better one may come in a few seconds
• Get your exposure and focusing and framing set up while you wait for the perfect shot
• Hold the camera to your eye all the time; in the half-second it takes lift the camera you could miss the shot
• In this picture, I spotted the shepherd from a car, screeched/skidded to a halt, got the car to disappear and waited for the flock to approach me - using the time to work out the best viewpoint to meet them.