This is the third in a mini-series of lessons from my photographic life.

Mostly, these are habits that I'm working to improve on, or correct. Some of them are habits I've seen in others.

If you've got any suggestions, please drop me a line.

Where you're sitting or standing is fine. Don't bother moving around. Don't move so the light's coming from a better angle, or you can get a more interesting/less cluttered shot. You're fine where you are.

OK, I'll admit it - I'm lazy. I'm also a bit inclined to avoid getting in people's way, perhaps too considerate of those around me at times. It can be hard to subtly move through a crowd to get the right shot, and it's easy to feel bad for getting in people's way.

I need to get over it. Not completely, not so much that I'm rude about it, but just be a little less concerned.

This lesson, while it applies to me as well, came to me while watching a student of photography take photos of my martial arts (aikido, in case anyone cares) class for an assignment. I was simply observing that day myself - sitting at the back of the class, learning by watching while recovering from a cold. She (the student) was sitting up the back with me, taking the occasional shot from where she was sitting, moving around a little from time to time, but always towards the back of the class. At the front of the class are big floor to ceiling windows, with mammoth amounts of light coming in.

All of her shots were coming out blurred and a bit over exposed - she had to keep the shutter speed down to get anything other than a silhouette, but doing that blurred the action, and overexposed the background. Of course, she could have used some flash to overcome that, but we ask that photographers don't use flash when we're training - it's a distraction that we don't need.

If she'd moved towards the front of the class - put her back to the dominant light source, she'd have been getting much better photos.

As well as being a great source of light, there;'s a rather stunning view from these windows. While nice, it's not the sort of thing you want in the background of a shot - it would be more distraction than anything. Putting her back to the windows would have given a fairly bland background - at best, a white wall, at worst, mirrors.

Don't be afraid to move.

Your photography will thank you for it.