Alfonso Calero shares a simple 30-minute-a-day exercise to help you improve your photo skills.
01 PRACTISE MAKES PERFECT
Try to produce a minimum number of photos each time you head out, at least five or ten a day. Some days will be better than others but the main value of this exercise is to get you in the habit of taking photos every day. Like anything, photography is a pursuit that rewards practise.
02 PICK A THEME
No matter where you live, if you walk for fifteen or thirty minutes each morning you're bound to find something worth photographing. Pick a theme – landscape, cityscape, people, architecture, etc, and try to stick it over the week. Revisit the same subjects and try to find new angles and ways to capture them. Look for ways to incorporate story elements into your photos. Ask yourself, 'How can I capture something that hasn't been said about this subject before?' Keep your eyes open and keep looking for fresh perspectives
03 WATCH THE LIGHT
Heading out at the same time every day will help you get familiar with the quality, quantity and direction of the light at that time. If you're lucky enough to experience some different weather conditions along the way you'll also get to see how that can have a huge effect on the tonal makeup of your photos. Experiment with shooting into the light, across the light and with the sun at your back.
04 TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
If you are new to photography and still getting used to your camera, set yourself the challenge of using a different exposure mode each day. Start with program mode, then switch to Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority.
In Program mode, the camera automatically controls Aperture and Shutter Speed. You can adjust the ISO to control the sensitivity of the sensor. At high ISO settings the sensor is more sensitive to light and produces more image noise. At low ISO settings the sensor is less sensitive to light and produces less image noise.
In Aperture Priority (A or Av) mode you set the aperture, while the camera sets the shutter speed. Experiment with different apertures to see how the depth of field changes.
In Shutter Priority (S or Tv) mode you set the shutter speed, while the camera sets the aperture. With your camera trained on a moving object try using a range of slow and fast shutter speeds.
Another useful control is exposure compensation. This allows you to override the camera's metering to over- or underexpose the image by a set amount, usually in increments of 1/3 stop up to ±2 stops. Experiment with the control to give priority to the shadow areas of your image and then the highlights.
05 RATE YOUR SHOTS
At the end of the week, sit down with your shots and give them a score for composition, lighting and emotion. Some images may rate highly in one or two criteria, the best will rate highly in all three. Were the better images taken at the beginning of the week or later on, after you'd visited the location several times? How did the lighting change over the week and which angles and weather conditions produced the best results?
If you are serious about improving your photography, seek out a more experienced photographer and get them to critique your photos. Encourage them to be honest and try to put their feedback into practice next time you head out with your camera.
Born and raised in the Philippines, Alfonso Calero moved to Australia at the age of 15. He graduated from the Sydney Institute of Technology with an Associate Diploma in Photography in 2001 and has been professionally photographing food, portraits, landscapes and travel subjects ever since. He started a travel education and tours company four years ago delivering workshops every Saturday morning in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Fremantle. He also takes groups of four people to Japan, Philippines, Spain and Tasmania once a year for 10-14 day photography workshops.