After you get those first few good shots photography can make you crazy.

You got a few good pictures, why can't you do it again? Why are most of your pictures still those boring vacation shots that put dinner guests to sleep? If you take enough pictures, sooner or later you'll shot a few that are worth a look. That's luck. If that luck is motivates you to figure out why they were worth a look and how to do something like that again then the photographer in you just hatched and is ready to evolve.

When my son first started walking I always joked it should be called falling. He did more falling than walking. The same is true about photography and can make you nuts. Lots of people give up at this point. When I got stuck here I started reading and talking to people and this is the formula I came up with: pick a subject, compose the take the shot. It got me out of the photo funny farm.

It sounds simple, but think about when you took pictures in the past. Did you look around and explicitly make a decision about what to take a picture of? Did you look at what was in the viewfinder or LCD and decide where to put the subject in the frame? Did you actually press the shutter button and take the shot?

To illustrate how these three steps work look at some of my own failed photos from a trip to Germany and France in December 2003. I won't call them bad. The only bad photos are the ones you don't take.

The first photograph below missed the first step, a subject. There is vaguely a focus on the buildings but there is no dominant subject. Your eyes are left wandering for something to look at. That's one more shot in the boring vacation pile. Look around before you shoot. If something catches your eye, maybe a photo of that something will catch your eye too.

The second photo missed the second step. There is a clear subject. His name is Lesley, a jovial Irish bloke. You find the subject immediately with a curious goofy expression but the interest stops there. There's nothing to explore in the photo. Here are three rules to improve composition that are simple enough to remember in the few seconds there are to put a shot together. Keep the subject out of the center, pay attention to the background and fill the frame. This photo misses on all three counts. The subject is dead center, the background looks to be a junk yard and the top half of the frame is a blown out sky. Finally, Lesley is too far away to get any sense of him as a person. The shirt is more the subject than the face at this distance.

Right behind me was a brownish stone cottage. I should have asked him to stand in front of it. It would have contrasted well with his shirt and complimented his disheveled look. If I moved close in, put his face off center and coaxed him to smile I might have had more success.

All of these failed photos did follow the most important rule - take the shot! Don't be afraid to take pictures like these that fail miserably. Each one is a chance to reflect on and improve your chances of success next time.

Now on to two shots that are more successful. First, the third shot below of a street scene. It's not a great shot, but does hold some interest. Unlike the first photo of a street this has a subject, albeit a composite subject. The overall street scene is the subject not any one actor. The receding lines give you a sense of perspective and bring you into the scene. The dinner guests might still fall asleep but at least get a sense of being there.

The featured shot above is the best of the lot. The location is the central square in Nuremberg, Germany. There were two subjects of interest to me. The cathedral and the McDonalds. The cathedral for the architecture and the McDonald's for the oddity. It was a modern icon plopped down in the middle of a historic square. This shot combines the two subjects through the reflection of the cathedral on the McDonalds window. The advertisement in German adds another hint of context.