Practice Your Photography Skills with these Simple Exercises

Whether you are just starting out in your photography endeavors, or you are a seasoned professional, sometimes you need a little help restarting, refining, or improving your photography. To help you, we’ve listed some photography exercises that will jumpstart creativity or help you push through your artistic block.

Macro Max

A common mistake made by beginner photographers is failure to fill the frame. To improve on this, practice taking shots which involve you getting as close as you can to your subjects without losing focus. Not only will you produce professional-looking, detailed images, but you’ll also get to know the capability of your lens.

Change it up

Try a different genre of photography. If you normally take portraits, give street photography a try for a weekend. If you’re more of an architectural photographer, try shooting sports at a local park.

Observation skills

Improve your observation skills by placing your camera from Beachcamera.com on an automatic setting and taking 10 different pictures of your surroundings. Then move 100 steps forward and take another 10.  You’ll begin to notice things that you would have missed before.

On the prowl

Moving subjects can be tricky to capture.  A way to get some extra practice is to photograph some wildlife in your own backyard or local park.  Better yet, try to capture some close-ups of moving insects.

Black and white

Shooting in black and white requires you to look at the world in a different way. Contrast, textures, and shapes become more prominent in the absence of color. Set your Canon 5D Mark III Digital SLR from Beachcamera.com to monochrome and go for a long walk, capturing images as you go. You’ll see that some images are enhanced by their lack of color.

Copycat

Select a few your favorite photographer’s best images and try to recreate them as closely as you can. Don’t worry if they’re not exact copies. This approach is more about helping you pick up new techniques.

On the clock

To give you a deeper understanding of light and its changing effects throughout the course of a day, take a photograph of the same subject every hour.

Reflect

Spend a day shooting only reflections of your subjects. Use puddles, car mirrors, glass, polished metal, anything you can find with a reflective surface.

Zoomless

Zooming can sometimes be an easy fix for any problems you have with getting near your subject. Don’t be afraid to get up close and personal. Disable your zoom and go out shooting with a fixed lens. This will encourage you to engage fully with your subject. As well as capture it from more interesting, intimate angles. Whatever your needs or issues are with your photography skills at the moment, these exercises should help you get back on track.