By Meghan Streit
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

A picture is worth a thousand words—but what that picture says can vary a lot depending on the skill of the photographer. Red eyes, bad lighting, blurred focus, and dozens of other factors can ruin what might have been a cherished photographic memory.

But the good news is that you don’t necessarily have to break the bank on a top-of-the-line camera or spend years in photography classes to take great photos.

With some determined practice and some tweaks to your technique, you can learn to take more interesting and artful photos.

Sedgebrook community member Janet Stein has been snapping photos for 25 years, racking up more than 30 photography club prizes for her work along the way.

“If you really want to get into [photography], you have start somewhere,” Stein says. While she is a more skilled photographer than most people, Stein still  attends Sedgebrook’s photography club meetings when she has time. She  recommends that her fellow residents interested in taking better pictures attend the workshops the club presents each month.

Critique your work with other photographers
Melvin Wachspress, an avid photographer and Sedgebrook resident, has been presenting the monthly workshops to help his fellow community members learn to take better photos and share their tips with one another.

“Since I’ve been a kid, I’ve been fooling around with cameras,” Wachspress says. “I was a member of a camera club in New York, and most of the people who were in that club, and moved on to places have looked for another club to join.”

Among other tools, Wachspress uses an interactive computer program developed by Cannon to teach workshop participants about composition, perspective, lighting, and other fundamental photography concepts. The software allows the class to practice taking photos of different moving scenes on the computer. Wachspress also invites participants to bring their own photos to class for collaborative critique and analysis.