The art of the summer snap

Oh, we try to get the shot. We spend a fortune on digital cameras with infinite capacities, or pick up one of the $3.99 disposables for sale on every corner. We haul out the old 35-millimeter, the whirring Polaroid, the Instamatic.

Then we set out to document our summer. There we are, picnicking on the Fourth of July, gabbing at the family reunion, beaming on graduation day. Look at us -- on vacation in Paris. Whacking away at T-ball. Hiking the San Gabriels. Diving in Hawaii.

And the photos? Well, you know. They’re a sentimental personal archive and all of that. (And please, the world says, keep it personal!) In the end, so much of the time, we snap away at the people we love and the places that astonish us -- and get some pretty ordinary results.

This year, we vowed to do better. And so we asked the experts -- the staff photographers of the Los Angeles Times -- to share their personal photos, and tell us how to shoot them well. We learned that the only way to get a good beach photo is to shoot at a certain hour. That you can get an amazing shot with a cheap throwaway camera. That you can get a vacation picture containing both you and a landmark that isn’t completely dorky.

Here’s the proof. And here’s how.