10 Photography Exercises For Beginners
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ScribdTranslations10 Photography Exercises For Beginners
Uploaded by
ScribdTranslations10 Photography Exercises for Beginners.
If you're just starting out in photography, it's common to feel overwhelmed by your
equipment, as if pressing a button or making an adjustment could ruin your equipment or
something bad could happen.
And like anything you learn, you need to practice and improve, so we present you with some
exercises that will help you eliminate that feeling of uncertainty and take away the fear of
using your camera in manual mode.
Here I share 10 exercises that will allow you to practice different styles, settings and types of
photography to trigger your creativity through experimentation.
1. Freeze motion: We use this exercise a lot in our courses, because it is a quick way to
understand how speed, in addition to letting light into the sensor, allows you to capture
motion. The exercise consists of freezing the movement using a fast speed.
Photograph a moving object, it can be anything from a car to a
person throwing a ball or any movement. Take photos at
different speeds starting at 1/100, gradually increasing the
speed and noticing how you freeze the movement. Remember
that with each step you advance in speed, you will have to
compensate with ISO and Aperture.
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2. Composition and Perspective: For this exercise we want you to develop your
photographic eye by looking for different photos of the same object.
The challenge is to take 10 different photographs of the same object of your choice. It can be
a decorative figure, a building, or even a space in your house. The idea is to play with angles,
perspectives, and parts of the object.
Take continuous shots as you circle the object, testing angles higher or lower and capturing
the detail of each part. You will be surprised at the different angles you can find.
3. Lighting: You can use a decorative object or figure, or a person as well.
The idea is that you can make portraits of the same by positioning a continuous light source
at different angles, as if you were in a photography studio. You can use your cell phone's lamp
or some other light source.
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4. Black and white: This type of photography is characterized by having a high level of
drama, and will also allow you to better understand how contrast, shadows and even
textures influence the moment of exposure. All you have to do is select monochrome
mode on your camera to take them.
This is a great opportunity for you to try different exposures, as underexposing will
accentuate the dark areas more and create more drama.
*Remember that if you shoot in RAW format, when you transfer the photos to any editing
program you will see them in color, since this format preserves all the information in the file.
5. Depth of field: Take different photographs without moving or changing the angle of the
shot, changing the aperture. Remember that as you close the diaphragm you will need to
adjust the speed and ISO to compensate for the lack of light.
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6. Silhouette: Capturing a silhouette against the light will help you reinforce the mastery or
control you have by correctly modifying your camera settings. To achieve this, you will
have to choose to underexpose your photograph; your object or protagonist of the photo
must be covering the light source in order to achieve greater detail in the silhouette.
7. Natural light per hour: Have you noticed the difference in colors and shades of the
environment during the day? If the answer is no, with this exercise it will be more evident,
the only thing you have to do is choose a view, it can be from your bedroom window and
take a photograph per hour. With this exercise you will see how:
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Working in bright light.
Understand the role of light during the day and how it influences your photographs.
Adjust the exposure according to the situation, and how the movement of the sun
influences it during the day.
*You can also do this exercise during different times of the year.
8. Long exposure: Whether you decide to do light painting with your cell phone's lamp or
capture the path of car lights (car trail), you will find super creative photos in long
exposure.
To do this, we recommend shooting at 5” or larger, remember that your ISO should be at its
lowest and compensate for excess light with the diaphragm (between F7 and F10), remember
that when working with such slow speeds you will need a tripod to ensure stability.
9. Portrait: Achieve a blurred background in your portrait, for this you must keep the
aperture open, ideally 3.5 or more, if you have a 50mm F1.8 lens you can make it easier.
But, if you have a kit lens, say 18 – 70mm, remember that you must take into account
both your physical distance and the focal length to ensure you achieve this effect.
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If you feel like experimenting even more, try doing it the other way around, i.e. focusing on
the background and blurring your model/object. This style became fashionable recently.
10. Sweep: Same as exercise #1, use a slow speed, 1/60 and below. Follow parallel to your
moving object and shoot without stopping.
The goal is to make your moving object sharp and the background look swept, this will
help you represent movement in a creative way.
Save this post and organize your week or even month so that you have time to do each one.
We chose these exercises because we are confident that they will help you strengthen and
develop skills that will allow you to elevate your work as a photographer.
