While I certainly don't feel qualified to give out picture-taking advice to anyone, my engineering background does allow me to explain some of the technical aspects of photography.

This won't go into the rule-of-thirds, or framing, etc., as these are composition issues.

I'll try to stick to the basic questions of "Why?" and "What does this really mean for me?"  I'll use actual photographs to demonstrate these principles.  You can use this information as you see fit, when composing your own images.

Looking at the pictures will help, but reading the information that goes with each topic will help even more.  The text that accompanies each section will explain things that the pictures are unable to show.