Entire books have been written on the subject of composition and it’s difficult to do the topic any justice in a single post. However, for those of you who are just starting out, I’ll offer two suggestions: Fill the image with your subject and consider the ‘rule of thirds’.
It is virtually impossible to buy a digital camera without automatic exposure capability, so it’s no surprise that most digital camera owners don’t learn the very basics. Good automatic exposure systems result in decent results most of the time, but as you have likely noticed, in others the results are disappointing. If you want to avoid photos that suck, you need to understand three basic exposure controls: Media sensitivity, shutter speed and lens aperture.