6 Effective Exercises to Build Your Photography Skills

Practice makes perfect in photography, but knowing what to focus on when you're just starting out can be difficult. Trying different skill-building exercises will take the guesswork out of it and help you refine your technique.

1. 7 Essential Techniques for Taking Landscape Photos on Your Phone

6. Try different photography challenges

You can find many photography challenge websites and apps that assign tasks designed to hone your skills. A beginner photographer should start with 60, 90, and 120-day challenges. If you're particularly ambitious, you can even take a photo every day for a year. It doesn't matter what you shoot, as long as you press the shutter at least once.

Other challenges are more specific. For example, you could try shooting only black and white photos every day for a month. You should try these challenges if you are passionate about a particular genre of photography and want to hone your skills in that area.

The 1,000-shot challenge works well too. Try taking 1,000 photos in the same lighting conditions (e.g., golden hour). Or try taking the same number of photos at different focal lengths. While it's easier to use 0.5x and 1x on a smartphone, you can also use a DSLR .

5. Only take close-up photos for a week

Close-up photography is extremely difficult, especially if you don't have a lens with a wide aperture. Because close-up photography is so difficult, focusing on just these types of shots for a week is ideal for improving your skills. You'll learn about composition, one of the most fundamental aspects of photography.

In addition to better composition, you'll also gain a better understanding of how backgrounds and colors work together to make a more interesting image. Experiment with different subjects, such as people and plants. You can try macro photography with your smartphone or extreme close-up photography.

4. Emulate your favorite creator

Emulating the work of your favorite creatives will teach you a lot about photography and editing. Never try to copy their work, add your own unique twist to their photography style.

You should also experiment with different settings in your editing app to see how creators you like edit their photos. Many have YouTube videos with full tutorials that you can use as a starting point for their changes.

Your brain will naturally branch out and come up with more creative ideas with enough practice.

3. Crop old photos

Cropping photos is another great way to learn more about composition. Go through your camera roll and experiment with different compositions on old favorite photos. This exercise is especially great on an iPhone because you'll see what's not visible on the screen when you take a photo.

Try cropping your image horizontally and vertically. Use a grid to guide you; it's especially helpful for guidelines and the rule of thirds .

2. Try long exposure photography

Low light photography is much more difficult than daytime photography, but it is also more rewarding. Many smartphones, such as the iPhone's Night Mode, have good low light photography capabilities. Many people prefer low light photography with a smartphone to a DSLR.

Long exposure photography is especially fun in urban areas, where you can experiment with lots of artificial light. Use traffic scenes and office buildings as a starting point. Bright signs can also enhance long exposures, and bonus points if you include people in the shot.

1. Recreate DSLR Photos on Smartphone

Despite many improvements over the years, smartphones still lack some of the features of DSLR cameras. So if you really want to improve your skills, try recreating DSLR photos on your smartphone.

You can try to recreate famous photos taken with a digital camera, but you can also pick a random image from Instagram that you like. Look for images from your hometown or somewhere you are traveling to if it is a landscape photo. Portraits can be recreated anywhere.

Skill-building exercises are a great way to improve your composition, knowledge of lighting, and many other essential elements of photography. Whether you have a smartphone or a DSLR, committing to a challenge long enough can yield great results.

Samuel Daniel

Update 25 May 2025