10 PHOTOGRAPHIC EXERCISES YOU SHOULD PRACTICE RIGHT NOW

I know, I repeat myself more than garlic ... But I won't tire of reiterating the times that are necessary that to learn photography you have to practice it. It is not only worth reading books, following this blog (or any other) or learning by heart the instruction book of your camera if you do not practice the theoretical knowledge acquired. That is why today we are going to do as when we went to school that they sent us tasks, but with a difference, at school we did them out of obligation, here I propose what you can do to improve, and you, as an adult and lover of photography you decide whether to do them or not . Although I know that you like photography so much and you are so eager to improve that you are already wondering what are those exercises to get down to work. I am going to propose some exercises in which you will have to work on contrasts, light, shutter speed ... These exercises will help you learn techniques that will help you improve your photographs in general. The photographer's eye and creativity are a fundamental part of this art, but the technique also helps. It is useless to capture a beautiful image with a perfect composition in which the lack of light makes the result completely deteriorate, or that it is a little shaky.

1. HIGH KEY AND LOW KEY

This is a really useful exercise to learn light management. It will help you work on both ends, with lots of light and very little light, for really different results. You will learn to manage light and distribute it strategically. In addition, you will learn how to get a type of photography that has a great impact on the viewer. Here you have explained step by step how to get these images and below two examples so you know what I'm talking about.

High key

Low key

2. SILK EFFECT

One way to practice long exposure is to achieve the well-known silk effect of water, like the one in the following image. You may have already tried it and it may have been successful or it may have been a catastrophe. The main problem of why we fail to do this exercise is that we usually test in broad daylight and the photos are overexposed. Practice these days if you have a river or a sea nearby, if not, a source from your city can help you to learn. The important thing is to have moving water. Iaio explains here perfectly how to get it .

Silk effect

3. DROPS OF WATER

Perhaps you have already practiced this exercise, or perhaps you have not. If you have already done so, you can try repeating it to add some creative touch, put your distinctive stamp on it. You will have already verified that almost all the photos of water drops look very similar. You can try to catch the drop falling on an object, a fruit, some hands ... in short, let your imagination and creativity work. If you have not already practiced it, you should know that it is a good exercise to learn how to control the shutter speed and lighting. It is not an easy exercise, it requires a lot of patience, but when you manage to get a good catch, you feel that the effort has been worth it and you end up jumping for joy. In this article Mario explains how to photograph a drop of water without dying of despair or you can also capture the drops of water in another context such as rainy days , although of course, you depend on the weather ...

Water drop

4. STRONG BACKLIGHT

You can practice this exercise at sunset to understand the principles of exposure measurement , since the backlight has nothing to do with that of the subject. You will get a silhouette that will have more or less strength depending on what you can count on it, if your silhouette seems to tell a story, your photography will have a greater impact and interest.

Backlit silhouettes

5. SMOKE

Photographing the smoke will help you understand the backlight, one of the most basic lighting schemes, while it will also help you practice with your external flash. In this tutorial I explain step by step how to achieve your smoke photography. If you have already done it and want to continue practicing, try introducing some creative element, such as a color filter or trying to achieve the same result with another background, I leave that to your choice so you can give it a little imagination and experiment.

Smoke photography

6. DO A SERIES

This exercise is not to learn any technique, but to train your creativity. Choose a theme, the one you like the most, and take a series of photos that revolve around this theme. Of course, it is not only worth shooting, put into practice what you have already learned!

7. DEPTH OF FIELD

Mastering depth of field is very important in photography. Playing with it you can give more prominence to your subjects or get more spectacular landscapes. Capture the same object or person playing with different "f-numbers" and alternate focus between background and foreground. In this way you will check the different effects achieved according to the depth of field you use or which part of the image focuses or blurs. It is an exercise that will be very useful to improve your portraits.

8. PHOTOGRAPH THE SAME STAGE AT DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE DAY

Light is not only an essential element to get a photograph, it can also become a creative element or the protagonist herself. One way to learn how light can "affect" your photography is to shoot on the same stage at different times of the day. The result will be very different in the golden hour (sunset or sunrise), in the blue hour (between sunrise or sunset and total darkness) or at noon. This exercise will help you make the most of the different nuances that natural light offers us depending on the time of day. It is true that it is widespread that the best time is at sunset or sunrise, but it will also depend on what you want to achieve or transmit with your images.

Same stage at different times

9. MAKE A PORTRAIT (OR BETTER SEVERAL)

But not just any portrait, a portrait that says much more, that tells something about the subject's personality, that his gestures and his gaze speak of him and his history. I recommend that you first take a look at this article and this one .

Try to get your portrait to talk about the subject.

10. CLEAN YOUR HARD DRIVE

This is a really difficult exercise, throwing our work away is not easy, I know, but it is necessary. As you advance in this art and improve the quality of your photographs, you will notice that many of the images that at first seemed great to you (modesty aside, it has all happened to us), now you will see that they are not so good. You have already learned to be somewhat more selective or selective and surely you are more demanding with you. I'm not talking about deleting memories, those images do not matter if they have more or less quality, because they have hearts. But surely there are many others that are "empty" and besides not transmitting or remembering, they lack interest. This exercise will help you not only to make room on your disk for future shots, but it will also help you to shoot better from now on and motivate you, You already have homework to practice even without leaving home. You can work high and low key, depth of field, smoke and water without leaving home, and clean the disc even without leaving your chair . So you can practice right now without excuses. Theory and words are fine, but they end up fading into our brains, while hands-on learning settles down so that you apply what you've learned even without realizing it. Thank you for continuing to read and learn with us. If you liked it and find it useful, share it with your friends . Until next reading!