How to take great photos?

Very simple. Follow this stream of decision points:

1.  Check Light: Light is your biggest friend in photography. If light is in your favor, any camera will go a nice job and take good photos. Even cellphone can take nice photos. If light is not right, most cameras will struggle. 

• Decision 1(a). Determine quantity of light. In low light (I mean when quantity of light is low), generally it is a tough job to take good photos. Let me give you some tips. 
• Decision 1(a)(i) Look at your subject.
  1(a)(i)-A. Is your subject stationary or a moving/living item?  If you are shooting a moving or a living thing (like human, animal, flowers etc), you have limited choices particularly when light is low. You do not have the luxury of keeping lens open for too long else the subject movement will blur the photo. So what to do?
  *Use a camera with bigger sensor or use expensive fast lenses. I mean money matters here. Expensive gear works better in low light, up to some extent.
  * Put camera to Tv- Shutter priority mode. Set the shutter speed to say 1/50 or faster. Boost up ISO to 800 to 32000. (For latest or expensive cameras, you can go for bigger numbers but for an average point and shoot camera, do not go beyond 800. Take the photo. If it is good, you are done!
  * If the photo is still not good, use artificial light. Turn on some light if available or turn on Flash on your camera. With flash on, if the photo is washed out, lower ISO to 100 or 200 and retake the photo. You can also make shutter faster but with Flash on, most cameras can not be set to shutter faster than 1/160 or so.
• 1(a)(i)-B. If your subject in low light is not moving, you are in luck.
  * Try tips above in 1(a)(i)-A. If the photo comes out good, you are done! If the photo is blurry or noise, you can try to take even better photos with tips below.
  * Use a tripod or put your camera on some solid platform. Turn on Timer mode. Set camera to Av- Aperture priority and use a value like f/4 to f/8. Set ISO to 200 to 1600 depending on the camera. Let camera decide shutter speed. Focus the camera and take a photo.
  * If the photo turns out too bright, use EV/Exposure Compensation to -1 and take a photo again. Play with 2-3 different EV values. Or set camera to Exposure Bracketing so it will take 3 photos in 3 different exposures. Keep the photo that looks nice to you.
• Decision 1(a)(ii). If the quantity of light is good, you really don't need any expensive camera. Set the camera to Auto mode, or any more appropriate mode and take photos.
  
• Decision 1(b): Determine *quality* of light. Normally in low light, quality is not a critical factor. However when the quantity of light is high (or there is abundant light), quality needs some attention.
• How to determine quality of light? Light can be homogeneous (sorry if I am inventing a new meaning here) or too-contrasty. Light in morning or in evening (before sunrise or after sunset), or in a cloudy day is an example of homogeneous light. However if you under the Sun in broad day light, if you carefully see, certain things like Sky are too bright but shadow or trees can appear pretty dark (only when compared to bright sky). This is an example of too-much-contrast.
  Few tips to avoid light's quality issues:
• 1. First and foremost. Try to shoot outdoor photos or landscapes in early morning or in late evening. Before sun rise or after sun-set is the best time for landscapes. Or pray god for a cloudy day.
• 2. If you are taking photo of people or some objects, try to keep the Sun behind the camera/photographer. This can expose people nicely. (If eyes are getting too dark, you can turn on Flash). If people are wearing caps or hats, request them to remove them so eyes become visible.
• 3. If you are taking landscapes in broad daylight, some objects may turn out to be too bright or too dark. If there are trees in your frame, trees may come out dark if you try to keep sky blue. If you try to expose trees (or relatively darker objects) in your photo better, the sky will get washed out. In such situation, 
• 3a. If your camera has HDR mode, turn it On. You can even use an iPhone which has nice HDR capture.
• 3b. If the objects are nearby and they are turning dark in your image, turn on the Flash. 
• 
  
• Got to go LOL. More later.

Tips on how to make passport photos at home.

Tips on how to make nice passport photos at home:

1. Try to find a white wall or a white bed sheet/large paper. Keep it as a background.
2. Find a place where there is good light that falls directly on the face. Try to avoid standing next to a window or door to avoid uneven light on the face. Make sure whole face is uniformly exposed.
3. Take a photo in the Auto mode. If it comes out well, fine. If the light is not good, photo may be blurry or  noisy.. You can try taking a photo with Flash on. If the flash creates any shadows, most online passport photo services like http://ipassportphotos.com or http://www.onlinepassportphoto.com would be able to remove the shadow. Supply them one photo with flash and one without flash.
4. If you don't want to use Flash and photo is coming out blurry or  noisy, follow these tips. If it is blurry, probably the shutter is open too long. Change to Tv (Shutter Priority mode) and set shutter speed to be no more than 1/75 seconds. (Mostly for such photos, subject person will be standing still for this much time). 
5. If the photo is coming out noisy, the ISO is probably too high. Try to set an upper limit on the ISO. Use the ISO mode (if available) or set ISO upper limit so camera can choose the value but not above the top limit you have set.If you are using a compact camera, do not use ISO more than 800 for most cameras. For SLR, you can go up to 3200 (or even more if you SLR is 2012 or older model).
   Set Camera to Manual mode. Then set Aperture to the widest open (lowest number) and Shutter speed to 1/75. Take few photos. 
6. If the photo is coming out too dark, it is because camera is set on intelligent metering option. The while background will fool camera to underexpose the photo. If possible, change metering mode to a Point or Center only mode. This will make sure the face gets nicely exposed.
7. Once you move your photos to the computer, crop it as shown below in photo#2.

Take few photos with different settings. Once you have a good photo, use some free tools/websites to crop your photo to make passport photos you need. For USA, you will need 2x2 inch photos.

Once personal advice. If you doubt the photo you have taken, it is worthwhile to spend few bucks and get your photo fixed by using services like http://ipassportphotos.com or http://www.onlinepassportphoto.com . When we are paying hundreds of dollars to renew a passport or get some visa, why not buy piece of mind by having someone fix your photo and make photos in the right size and as per the specs you need. Remember, US passport photos are very different than passport photos used in Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, Japan, China or any other country. Each country has own requirements when it comes to photos for passport or visa. Good luck.