Improve your Photography without using your Camera

I use a couple of mental exercises to improve my photography without even touching my camera. I never named them before, but I guess I'll christen them "My Final Picture" and "Spot the Light". These exercises are great when you're bored, such as when I'm held hostage in an endless meeting at work, or when I'm waiting in line at the DMV, or I'm just surfing the web, looking for something interesting.

My Final Picture

It's very easy, and you can do it anywhere. Wherever you find yourself, like say your grandmother's kitchen at Thanksgiving, or waiting for your girlfriend in the parking lot because she made you come pick her up, imagine this. You have one picture left you can take in your lifetime, and you have to take it right where you are. You can take it of anything in your immediate scene - any subject, any angle, any settings, any filters - but this is the last one, and it's going to sum up your life's work. What will it be? What can you see that would be worthy? Will it be a wide angle shot, showing the entire area? What are you trying to show people with this last shot? Will you focus on a person's face? Which person, and why? If there's very little of interest at the scene, what will you do? A macro? A picture focusing on some graphical shape? A repeating pattern? Will it be a shallow or deep depth of field?

Do this when you get bored, and you will find the world opening up to you in ways you never imagined before.

Spot the Light

This is good to do when looking at other people's pictures - professional, amateur, or even simple snapshots. You can even do it with paintings.

Examine the picture and try to figure out how many light sources there are, and where they are positioned. This includes reflected light. For example, if a woman is sitting by a window, and the side of her face is in total shadow, you know there must be just the single, window light. If you can see detail in the shadow, you know there must be another light, but what kind of light is it? Is it a warm color? Might be an indoor light. No color cast? It is probably reflected. This can be fun to do with images that have lots of light. If it's a portrait, look in the subject's eyes. Many times you can see one or more light sources. Where are they? Close? Far? Do you think there is a light modifier attached (e.g. a diffusion screen, barn doors, etc.)? Can you see the photographer reflected in the eyes? It's amazing how many times you can see the photographer, even in professional model shoots - we seem to just edit that out with our minds.

This exercise will help you practice seeing the light in front of you, and how it falls on your subject. Not only is that good for studio work, where you have complete control over the light, but it also helps when you're outdoors. When you can visualize the light, you can take advantage of what's there, change positions or wait for the right moment as the light moves. This also helps you know when to use reflectors and fill flash to supplement the existing light to get the look you're going for.

These two mental exercises are easy to do, require no fancy equipment and will definitely improve your photography, whatever level you're at now. Have fun :)