I used to take pictures like this:

Now I shoot scenes like this:

The difference? A surprisingly small number of lessons from a very talented photography instructor, Michael Willems. Go to his blog right now — www.speedlighter.ca — , learn some useful tips, and register for a class. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

You back? Great. Now you’ll want an easy reference tool to help you remember all those amazing tips Michael taught you. Or, for you unfortunate souls who can’t make the trip to his Oakville studio, you’ll wish you could bottle up all the knowledge that Michael regularly spouts into a readily available and pleasantly readable digital form.

Prayers answers. Enter The Photography Cookbook: 52 Situational Photography Recipes. $19.95 for 108 pages of easy-to-understand ‘photography recipes’ for every situation you can imagine. Fireworks. Candlelight. Action sports. It’s all there with recommended aperture, shutter and ISO settings.

Go buy it already! http://www.michaelwillems.ca/Buy_Book.html