Breaking the rules | DP Week 1 - Post 2

As I keep going with the weekly creative exercises to reinforce old creative skills and develop new ones, this past week I decided to try a photography exercise, actually two exercises in one.

I was researching for ideas and came across an article by Canva. From the article I chose two exercises that I thought were going to be easy for me because they didn't need much work, or not so big equipment to get them done.

The exercises I chose were:

Break the rules

What to do: certain traditional rules tend to guide how we think we can capture the best shot: portraits must be lit from the front; landscapes should be captured during golden hour; and photos should be composed using the rules of thirds. For one day, give yourself permission to break those rules and focus on photographing backlit portraits, midday landscapes, and centered subjects.

Do not post-process

What to do: rely on your skills rather than on post-production techniques to enhance your photos. All the elements that you would normally crop, retouch, or adjust in post-production? Focus on addressing them before you even take your shot.

Centered subjects and beautiful colors.

A diagonal angle shot, which is not often seen because it doesn't look natural.

A centered subject moving.

With these exercises, I was able not just to have fun and practice photography, but I also tested shooting in an uncontrolled environment, and trusted myself to get all the work done. I was encouraged to get the right shots and that led me to not edit anything in the images.