Tricks to capturing great photos!

Personally i'm an amateur when it comes to photography, but I have noticed that there are a lot of skilled photographers here, so I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread about how you wonderful photographers go about taking amazing pictures. Like what settings and camera you use, your favourite time of day for taking pictures and any other special equipment you use, and any helpful tips you'd like to share with the aspiring photographer.

I have a fujifilm finepix S1600, 12 mega pixel 15x optical zoom (nothing too expensive as i'm just a poor student haha).
Most pictures I have taken are on "auto" shooting mode, i've tried playing with the settings but i'm just not grasping it.
Here's a few of my favourite pictures (non horsey) I have taken with it:

Here are some tips that I gave to another user: Critique my photos please!!(Pic overload)

Here you can see some of my pics, taken with Samsung Digimax i50. It isn't very quality camera tho: Sharing the best part of my photograpy .

I think I need to do some photographing again. I haven't photographed for a while now.

Thanks for sharing. Your pictures are wonderful!

All those are good pictures, but I really love the 2nd and 4th the best. Very nice!
I am no pro either, so am anxious for any tips as well.

I do find I still get some really great (if I say so myself) pics, even leaving my camera on the automatic mode.
I always try to take advantage of beautiful, natural light.
I also think color contrasts really make a difference too.
Here are some I've taken with my 35mm "point-n-shoot", in auto mode....

Wow ... I'm loving the photo's. They are all brilliant. What a creative bunch!

Wow these are cool! Haha I don't know anything about photography really and I just have a cyber-shot sony camera. My mom knows A LOT and she has a lot of amazing pictures. I'd like to get better at it though! I have a few good pics. I might share some later. I'll subscribe to this thread though and maybe get some good tips from it!

Thank you :).

I like also other photos posted on this thread.

Subscribing! I love potography, have done a lot with my digital camera before I got my Canon Rebol. Still a newbie to using it, so I'm not the greatest, but it's a lot of fun.

Whiskey, what an incredible image(the wheel and monument in the background). Where was it taken?

Thank you it was taken in Glasgow near Prince's street.