"Any photograph, whether it's a snapshot from a family vacation, a formal portrait of the police chief, a crime scene photo or an abstract landscape needs four elements to make it great: Composition, Lighting, Exposure and Sharpness. Being aware of these four elements can make the difference between average photos and great photos. Here are the basics of each:

Composition: This involves picking the best angle, distance, lens, and cropping. In forensics, this usually means avoiding lenses that are too wide or long, avoiding odd angles, not cropping out important aspects, and showing the relationships between objects.

Lighting: In reconstruction, lighting is dictated to us by the scene and circumstances - but otherwise, we can control our lighting with the time of day, camera angle, turning on or off existing lights, and the use of supplemental lighting (flash, multiple flash, flood lights, forensic light sources, etc.).

Exposure: This is nothing more than choosing the best shutter speed and aperture setting to properly record the scene. Light meters can be fooled by bright highlights or large areas of shadow. Remember to verify your exposure on your camera's LCD monitor and with the histogram.

Sharpness: This term refers to focus, image sharpness, and depth-of-field. Our subject should be sharp, but carrying that sharpness beyond our subject may or may not be the best choice. Use shutter speeds, apertures and tripods as needed to provide the level of sharpness required for your images is essential to good photography.

Using these four elements, one can produce excellent documentary or evidentiary photographs, beautiful fine art images, and memorable snapshots. There is a lot to each of these elements, and we'll explore them in other photo tips."