5 Unusual Ways to Improve Your Photography

As photographers grow more familiar with their gear and solidify their preferred approach, it’s easy to fall into comfortable, well-trodden patterns. We often return to the same focal lengths, shoot the same subjects, rely on the same post-processing techniques, and compose images according to established habits. While there’s value in refining a signature style, there is also a risk of stagnation.

Challenging these settled routines can lead to meaningful growth. By intentionally introducing constraints and discomfort, photographers at any stage—enthusiast, emerging professional, or seasoned veteran—can refresh their vision, develop new technical aptitudes, and ultimately produce more compelling images. The exercises outlined here are designed to do just that. They are not intended as quick fixes or simplistic tricks, but as structured explorations that target core skills, from understanding light and controlling contrast to learning compositional discipline and enhancing storytelling clarity.

These exercises are not merely technical drills. They also connect directly to the psychological and creative dimensions of photography. The result is a clearer personal vision, stronger storytelling, and more imaginative, thoughtful imagery.

Exercise 1: Seeing in Black and White by Setting Your EVF/LCD to Monochrome

Why It’s Valuable

Photography is fundamentally about light—its quality, direction, and intensity. Color, while beautiful and integral to many images, can sometimes distract you from understanding the nuances of illumination and shadow. When you switch your camera’s EVF or rear LCD screen to black and white mode, you remove the immediate presence of color, enabling you to focus solely on tonal relationships. Once you start “seeing” in monochrome, you learn to notice subtle gradations of brightness and darkness, identify strong silhouettes, and pay more attention to contrast and texture. Such heightened sensitivity to light often translates to better color photography as well, since you gain a more critical understanding of luminosity and tone.

Skills Developed

• Tonal Awareness: By removing color, you’re forced to discern how highlights, midtones, and shadows work together.
• Improved Composition: Recognizing strong shapes and lines becomes easier in black and white, encouraging more balanced and harmonious compositions.
• Improved Lighting Decisions: Understanding how different light sources and conditions translate into tonal structure helps you control exposure more effectively.

Sample Scenarios

Imagine photographing a busy farmers’ market. In color, your eye might be drawn to the vibrant reds and greens of produce. With your EVF set to monochrome, you notice that a shaft of morning light hitting a vendor’s face creates a dramatic highlight against the dark backdrop of the stall’s interior. Instead of relying on color contrast (red tomatoes against green cucumbers), you’re emphasizing the sculptural quality of light and shadow. Another scenario could be a landscape setting: rolling hills under soft, diffused light may appear flat and uninteresting in color, but in black and white, subtle tonal variations become noticeable, and a single leading line, like a winding fence, pops visually because it contrasts more clearly against different tonal zones of grass and sky.

Practical Tips and Steps

1. Set Your Camera Properly: If you shoot raw, you still retain color data, so there’s no permanent loss.
2. Look for Contrast: Before pressing the shutter, study your scene for distinct light patterns. Notice how objects separate (or don’t) based on tone alone.
3. Experiment With Different Light Sources: Try direct sunlight, overcast light, window light, and artificial light. Observe how each affects your scene tonally.
4. Evaluate Your Results in Post: Although you shot in black and white, your raw files will have color information. Decide later whether the final image should stay monochrome. The exercise is about the seeing, not necessarily the end result.
5. Avoid the Temptation to Switch Back: It might feel odd at first, but commit to at least an hour or two of shooting entirely in black and white. Trust the process.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Overreliance on Familiar Compositions: Don’t just convert your usual shots to black and white thinking that’s enough. Actively seek out scenes where strong tonal contrast tells the story.
• Ignoring Midtones: Pure black and pure white are dramatic, but subtle midtones are equally important. Don’t push contrast so far you lose these delicate transitions.

Exercise 2: Using a Prime Lens You Normally Avoid

Why It’s Valuable

Every photographer has their go-to lens. For some, it’s a trusty 50mm prime; for others, a versatile 24–70mm zoom. Reliance on a single focal length can create stylistic consistency, but it may also lead to predictability. By forcing yourself to use a prime lens you rarely touch—say, that wide angle 24mm or that 135mm that’s been gathering dust—you step outside your comfort zone. Different focal lengths impose unique constraints on composition and storytelling. A wide lens forces you to consider foreground interest and deal with potential distortions. A telephoto lens compresses space and encourages more minimalist compositions. This switch-up can ignite fresh ideas and help you appreciate lenses as creative tools rather than mere gear.

Skills Developed

• Adaptability: Learning to see the world through a focal length you’re not accustomed to sharpens your ability to quickly adjust and find workable compositions.
• Expanded Vision: Different lenses excel at different tasks. You'll broaden the range of scenarios you can handle effectively.

Sample Scenarios

If you normally shoot street photography at 35mm, try using a 24mm prime. Suddenly, you must get closer to your subjects to fill the frame, introducing a sense of intimacy and immersion. Or perhaps you’re a portrait shooter who favors 50mm, and you switch to 135mm. You’ll learn how to isolate subjects more dramatically from the background and see how that extra reach changes your interaction with subjects. Landscape photographers might typically rely on ultra-wide lenses; by switching to a 50mm prime, they can find simpler, more graphic compositions that rely less on sweeping vistas and more on careful framing of key elements.

Practical Tips and Steps

1. Pick a Lens That Scares You: Not literally, of course, but choose one that you rarely use because it challenges you—maybe it’s too wide or too tight.
2. Leave Other Lenses at Home: Don’t carry backups that tempt you to revert. Give yourself no fallback option.
3. Lock Your Zoom: Don't own a prime? That's fine. Just set your zoom to one focal length and leave it there.
4. Reflect on the Differences: After the shoot, compare how this lens changed your approach compared to your usual gear by looking at shots side by side.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid:

• Forcing Your Old Style on the New Lens: Let the lens guide you. Instead of trying to replicate what you’d do with another focal length, discover what this lens does best.
• Giving Up Early: Commit to a full session or even multiple outings. Often, the best lessons appear after initial discomfort fades.

Exercise 3: Limiting Yourself to Just 10 Shots per Outing

Why It’s Valuable

Digital photography can encourage a “spray and pray” mentality, where you capture dozens, if not hundreds, of images in a single outing, hoping to find one or two good frames later. While this approach can sometimes yield results, it often impedes careful consideration and discipline. By limiting yourself to just 10 shots, you transform the process into something more thoughtful and intentional. Each click of the shutter becomes a decision worthy of consideration. You’ll learn to pre-visualize more effectively, compose more precisely, and wait for the “decisive moment” rather than rushing the process.

Skills Developed

• Patience and Discipline: By having a strict quota, you slow down, pay closer attention, and think twice before pressing the shutter.
• Selective Seeing: With fewer shots available, you learn to identify what’s truly worth capturing.
• Improved Pre-Visualization: You begin imagining the final image more clearly before lifting the camera to your eye.

Sample Scenarios

Consider a travel photographer wandering through a bustling market. With unlimited shots, they might capture everything, from every angle, resulting in a cluttered memory card and a long editing session. With a ten-shot limit, they’ll watch how a particular vendor interacts with a customer, wait for just the right moment—a gesture, a facial expression, a beam of light—and then press the shutter once, knowing that moment is special. In a landscape scenario, instead of taking countless images of the same mountain range under slightly different exposures, you’ll carefully select the composition that best conveys the mood, frame it meticulously, and take the shot once the light is perfect.

Practical Tips and Steps

1. Set a Limit Before You Leave: Decide on a number—10 is suggested, but you can adjust if you prefer. The key is having a strict upper bound.
2. Shoot JPEG Only (Optional): This can intensify the exercise by making you trust your exposure and composition skills without relying on extensive post-processing.
3. Engage in Mental Composition First: Look carefully at your scene and imagine the final image. If it doesn’t excite you, move on.
4. Take Time to Review: After each shot, consider what worked and what didn’t. Adjust your strategy for the next frame.
5. Analyze the Results Later: Evaluate the 10 images you ended up with. Were they stronger, more purposeful, or more coherent than your normal work?

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Wasting Early Frames: Don’t burn half your allowance on mediocre subjects early on. Be patient.
• Overthinking to the Point of Inaction: While caution is good, don’t let it paralyze you. If you see a genuinely great moment, capture it.
• Cheating the Limit: Stick to your chosen cap. The discipline is the point of the exercise.

Exercise 4: Using a Single Aperture Setting All Day

Why It’s Valuable

Aperture is a foundational element in photography. It controls depth of field, influences shutter speed, and subtly affects image quality. Photographers adjust aperture frequently, chasing the perfect combination of sharpness and blur. While that’s natural, it can also prevent you from deeply understanding how a single aperture can shape your creative decisions. By choosing one aperture and sticking to it all day—say f/8—you remove one variable from the equation. Now, instead of fiddling with aperture rings or dials, you focus on composition, subject placement, and perspective. You learn to solve problems by moving your feet, changing your angle, and working with the existing depth of field limitations rather than using the aperture as a crutch.

Skills Developed

• Compositional Discipline: Without aperture changes to isolate subjects, you learn to use lines, shapes, and vantage points more effectively.
• Deeper Understanding of Depth of Field: You’ll gain a richer sense of how focusing distance and focal length interact with a fixed aperture.
• Creative Problem-Solving: Unable to blur distracting backgrounds at will, you must find other solutions—like changing your subject’s position or framing them differently.

Application Examples

A portrait photographer who habitually shoots wide open at f/1.8 to isolate subjects now tries f/8 for an entire day. Now, the background is more detailed. To keep their subject standing out, they must carefully consider the background’s relationship to the subject—perhaps waiting until their subject moves against a contrasting backdrop, or finding a vantage point where lines in the environment guide the viewer’s eye to the person.

Practical Tips and Steps

1. Choose a Moderate Aperture: f/8 is a good starting point for general photography. Landscape shooters might try f/2, while portraitists might pick f/5.6.
2. Set and Forget: Tape your aperture ring or refuse to alter it via camera controls. Firmly commit to this limitation.
3. Work With the Given Depth of Field: If your background is too busy, move your subject or yourself, rather than changing aperture.
4. Embrace Sharpness or Lack Thereof: If shooting portraits at f/8, accept the extra detail and find ways to simplify the frame.
5. Review Your Results Critically: Look at how your compositions evolved without aperture flexibility. Did you become more resourceful?

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Choosing an Extreme Aperture: A challenging aperture like f/22 might lead to diffraction issues or require very long exposures—start moderate.

Exercise 5: Sticking to a Strict, Unfamiliar Aspect Ratio

Why It’s Valuable

The aspect ratio of an image—whether it’s the standard 3:2 of many sensors, the 4:3 ratio of some others, the square 1:1 of medium format film, or the cinematic 16:9—significantly influences composition and storytelling. Photographers often default to their camera’s native ratio and rarely deviate. By switching to something unfamiliar—like shooting exclusively in a square format or a panoramic 16:9—you’re forced to reimagine how elements fit within the frame. This can lead to more balanced compositions, stronger visual flow, and a deeper understanding of how format influences how viewers read an image.

Skills Developed

• Refined Compositional Sense: Different ratios require different placement of subjects and leading lines.
• Heightened Awareness of Space: You learn to utilize space more efficiently and intentionally, avoiding dead areas or cramped framing.
• Adaptability Across Formats: By working in an unusual ratio, you develop the skill to effortlessly adapt to any format, from social media crops to gallery prints.

Application Examples

A photographer used to 3:2 might try 1:1 (square) for portraits. Placing the subject centrally might feel natural, but the square also invites experimentation with symmetry, negative space, or careful off-center placement. For a landscape shooter accustomed to wide horizontal frames, trying a vertical 4:5 ratio can highlight lines of trees or architectural details that would be less impactful in a narrower format. Commercial photographers who often shoot for Instagram (square or vertical) might explore cinematic ratios to experiment with storytelling in a more filmic way.

Practical Tips and Steps

1. Set Your Camera’s Crop Mode: Many cameras allow in-camera cropping overlays. Choose a ratio that feels challenging.
2. Compose in the Viewfinder: Don’t rely on cropping in post. Force yourself to see in the chosen aspect ratio at the time of shooting.
3. Think About Storytelling: Aspect ratio can dictate what details you include. With a narrower frame, you might focus on key elements and exclude distractions.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

• Treating It as a Simple Crop: The point isn’t just to crop later; it’s to envision and capture compositions natively in that ratio.
• Filling the Frame Without Purpose: Different ratios should inspire new compositions, not just the same framing in a different shape.

The Psychological and Creative Dimensions: Why Constraints Fuel Growth

All these exercises share one essential element: constraint. By limiting your choices and imposing unfamiliar rules, you trigger a shift in how you approach image-making. Constraints, far from stifling creativity, often enhance it. Here’s why:

1. Forcing Intentionality: Limitations bring clarity. When you cannot lean on your usual techniques—like switching focal lengths at will or endlessly adjusting aperture—you must be more deliberate. This encourages a thoughtful process, where each decision is made with intention rather than habit.

2. Breaking Old Patterns: Creative ruts form when we repeatedly fall back on tried-and-true formulas. Constraints serve as catalysts to break these patterns, pushing us toward fresh visual languages and bold stylistic leaps.

3. Heightening Awareness: With constraints in place, you pay closer attention to fundamental photographic elements: light, shadow, composition, and perspective. Freed from—or rather, prevented from relying on—your standard approaches, you rediscover the raw building blocks of good photography.

4. Embracing Discomfort: Growth rarely comes from comfort. The nervousness felt when using an unfamiliar lens, the frustration at a fixed aperture, or the impatience when stuck in monochrome view is a signal that you’re learning. Lean into this discomfort. It’s what makes the newfound skills stick.

5. Mindset Shift: Successful photographers know that mindset is as crucial as skill. Approaching these exercises with curiosity rather than dread, seeing them as opportunities rather than burdens, can transform your entire photographic practice. By learning to welcome change, you become more resilient and adaptive, qualities that serve you well in any creative pursuit.

Integrating Lessons Learned Into Regular Practice

Completing these exercises is only half the story. The real value lies in integrating the lessons into your regular shooting routine. Here are some ways to incorporate what you’ve learned:

1. Build a Habit of Intentionality: Even after you return to your normal camera settings and gear, remember the mindset you cultivated. When you find yourself rapidly pressing the shutter, pause. Ask yourself if you’re shooting mindlessly or for a specific purpose.

2. Rotate Your Constraints: Introduce a “challenge day” into your photography routine. Once a month, pick one of these exercises—black and white EVF, limited shots, fixed aperture—and incorporate it into a shoot. Regular exposure to constraints keeps your creative muscles sharp.

3. Apply Tonal Awareness to Color Work: The understanding of tonal relationships gleaned from the black and white exercise should inform how you use color. Now that you know how light and dark elements interplay, look at color as another layer of complexity atop that foundation.

4. Use Your Unusual Lens Skills in the Field: After becoming comfortable with a lens you once avoided, you might keep it in your bag more often. Over time, you’ll be able to choose the best focal length for a situation with broader insight and comfort.

Ongoing Growth Through Intentional Challenge

The five exercises detailed here are stepping stones toward a richer, more versatile photographic practice. By seeing the world in black and white, you sharpen your tonal awareness. By embracing an unfamiliar prime lens, you expand your creative toolkit. By restricting your shot count, you cultivate patience and precision. By fixing your aperture, you strengthen compositional problem-solving. By adopting an unusual aspect ratio, you challenge your framing instincts. Each exercise targets a core area of photographic thinking and execution, helping you become a more thoughtful, adaptive, and resourceful photographer.

This process also underscores a larger lesson: growth in photography is never just about better gear or more expensive lenses. Rather, it emerges from how you engage with the medium—by questioning your assumptions, welcoming difficult challenges, and learning to see differently. Embrace these exercises not as chores but as invitations to discover new dimensions of your craft. Over time, you’ll integrate these lessons into your natural working method, shaping an authentic personal style informed by a deep understanding of light, composition, and storytelling.

The best photographers are perpetual students, always willing to experiment and evolve. Constraints are not walls but scaffolding, helping you build upward. By periodically revisiting these exercises and seeking out new ways to challenge yourself, you ensure that your journey in photography remains dynamic, purposeful, and endlessly rewarding.