Cameras have more modes than a subway map, and none of them teach you anything. The path that works changes one setting at a time. Start with aperture priority: set the lens wide open and watch how the background softens behind your subject. That single control is where the professional look actually lives.
Next comes shutter speed, the dial that freezes motion or lets it blur. Fast for a passing bicycle, slow for a waterfall — and if the photo comes out dark, the camera is telling you the light has run out, not that the settings are wrong. Raise the sensitivity, hold the camera steady, or move to the window. The camera is a light meter with a button.
Shoot in the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset, when the light is warm and the shadows are long — that is the golden hour, and it flatters everything it touches. Then review the day's photos in the evening and delete without mercy. Ten good photos from a hundred is a great day. The camera was never the problem; attention was.