Top 17 'Perspective-Shifting' Photo Exercises to practice for a More Dynamic Instagram Feed This Season
Hey photographers, let's have an honest chat. Do you ever scroll through your own camera roll and feel... a little bored? You've captured beautiful moments, interesting subjects, and stunning light, but somehow, many of your shots start to look the same. It’s a common creative roadblock, and it often stems from one simple habit: shooting everything from eye level.
We all do it. It’s our natural, default way of seeing the world. But your camera isn't limited to your height. It can go anywhere—high above your head, down in the dirt, or peeking through a fence. The secret to a truly dynamic, scroll-stopping Instagram feed isn't necessarily a fancier camera or a more exotic location; it's learning to consciously and creatively shift your perspective. A simple change in angle can transform a mundane scene into a masterpiece.
Ready to break the mold and train your eye to see the world differently? We've compiled 17 powerful, perspective-shifting photography exercises designed to get you out of your comfort zone. Treat this list as your creative gym. Pick one or two exercises for your next photo walk and watch as you begin to unlock a whole new level of visual storytelling.
1. The Worm's-Eye View
Get low. No, lower than that. The worm's-eye view involves placing your camera on or very near the ground and shooting upwards. This perspective dramatically alters the scale of your subject, making it appear dominant, powerful, and larger than life. It’s an instant way to add drama and impact to an otherwise ordinary scene.
Think about how this changes the relationship between the subject and the viewer. A simple flower becomes a towering monument against the sky. A skyscraper seems to stretch into infinity. Even a portrait of a person shot from this angle can make them look heroic and confident. Use your camera's flip-out screen if you have one—it will save your back and knees!
Pro-Tip: This angle is fantastic for capturing clean, uncluttered backgrounds. By shooting up, you can often replace a busy street or distracting background with the simple, beautiful canvas of the sky.
2. The Bird's-Eye View
Now, let's go in the complete opposite direction. The bird's-eye view means shooting directly down onto your subject from above. This perspective is brilliant for revealing patterns, textures, and geometric shapes that are invisible from a normal angle. It gives the viewer a sense of context and an almost god-like overview of the scene.
You don't need a drone for this (though they certainly help!). You can stand on a chair to shoot a flat lay of your coffee and journal, look down from a bridge onto the traffic below, or shoot from the top of a staircase. This angle strips away the familiar and presents the world in a more abstract, graphic way, which is perfect for creating visually striking images.
Pro-Tip: Pay close attention to your composition. Bird's-eye view shots are all about arrangement and balance. Look for symmetry, leading lines, and interesting color combinations on the ground below.
3. Hunt for Leading Lines
This is a classic composition technique for a reason. Leading lines are natural or man-made lines within your photo—like roads, fences, rivers, or architectural elements—that guide the viewer's eye through the image, usually toward the main subject. They create a powerful sense of depth and pull the viewer into the scene.
The exercise is simple: for your next shoot, actively look for lines. Don't just see a road; see a line that carves through the landscape. Don't just see a building; see the lines of its edges converging in the distance. Your perspective matters here. Getting lower can make a line seem more dramatic, while changing your position left or right can alter where the line enters and exits the frame.
Pro-Tip: For maximum impact, try to position the leading line so it starts near one of the corners of your frame. This creates a more natural and engaging path for the eye to follow.
4. Frame Within a Frame
Add instant depth and context to your photos by finding a natural frame for your subject. This involves using elements in the foreground—like a doorway, a window, an archway, or even overhanging tree branches—to frame the main subject in the background. It's a fantastic storytelling device.
This technique does two things brilliantly. First, it adds layers and a three-dimensional feel to a two-dimensional image. Second, it helps to isolate your subject and draw the viewer's attention directly to it by eliminating distracting elements around the edges of the photo. As the great photographer Goh Ling Yong often says, what you choose to leave out of the frame is just as important as what you put in.
Pro-Tip: Don't be afraid to let your "frame" be out of focus. A soft, blurry foreground frame can create a beautiful sense of depth and make the sharp, in-focus subject pop even more.
5. Shoot Through an Obstacle
This is a subtle but incredibly effective way to shift perspective and create a more intimate, cinematic feel. The idea is to intentionally place an object in the immediate foreground, between your lens and your subject, and shoot "through" it. This could be foliage, a chain-link fence, a rain-streaked window, or even the steam rising from a coffee cup.
By focusing on your main subject, the foreground element becomes a soft, colorful blur that adds texture, depth, and a sense of place. It can create a feeling of discovery or even voyeurism, as if the viewer is getting a secret glimpse into a scene. This is a go-to trick for professional portrait and street photographers.
Pro-Tip: Use a wide aperture (a low f-stop number like f/1.8 or f/2.8) to maximize the blur of the foreground object. The closer the object is to your lens, the blurrier it will become.
6. The Puddle Reflection
Don't let a rainy day keep you inside! A fresh rainfall offers one of the most exciting perspective-shifting opportunities: puddlegrams. Puddles, wet pavement, or any reflective surface can act as a natural mirror, allowing you to capture a stunning, symmetrical version of the world.
Get your camera as close to the surface of the water as possible to get the best reflection. This angle can turn a city skyline into a surreal, floating world or a simple portrait into a work of art. The key is to see the reflection not just as a mirror image, but as a compositional element in its own right.
Pro-Tip: Decide whether you want the real subject or the reflection to be in focus. Focusing on the reflection can create a more abstract and dreamlike image. You can also try flipping the final image upside down for a disorienting, gravity-defying effect.
7. Shoot "From the Hip"
Sometimes, the best way to change your perspective is to take your eye away from the viewfinder entirely. Shooting from the hip means holding your camera at waist or hip level and shooting without precisely composing the shot. It’s a core technique in street photography for capturing candid, authentic moments without drawing attention to yourself.
The results are often wonderfully unexpected. You get a lower, more intimate angle, and the images feel less staged and more immediate. It forces you to let go of perfect composition and instead focus on capturing the feeling and energy of a moment. This exercise is all about embracing imperfection and surprise.
Pro-Tip: Use a wider lens (like a 24mm or 35mm) for this exercise. It will increase your chances of getting your subject in the frame and provides a field of view that feels very natural and immersive from that lower angle.
8. Isolate with a Wide Aperture
Perspective isn't just about your physical position; it's also about where you direct the viewer's attention. One of the most powerful ways to do this is by using a wide aperture (a low f-stop number) to create a shallow depth of field. This throws the background into a beautiful, creamy blur (known as bokeh), making your subject stand out dramatically.
This exercise forces you to think about your subject in isolation. What is the single most important thing in this scene? By blurring out the distracting background, you are changing the viewer's perspective, telling them, "Look here. This is the story." It's an essential skill for portraiture, product, and food photography.
Pro-Tip: The distance between your subject and the background matters. To get a more blurry background, increase the distance between them. Move your subject further away from that busy wall or hedge.
9. Exaggerate with a Wide-Angle Lens
If you have a wide-angle lens (typically anything below 35mm), this exercise is for you. Wide-angle lenses have a unique way of altering perspective. They make objects in the foreground appear much larger and more prominent, while objects in the background seem to recede into the distance. This creates a powerful, immersive, and often dramatic sense of depth.
Get close to your foreground element—a rock on a beach, a flower in a field, the corner of a building—and watch how the lens stretches the scene. It’s perfect for epic landscapes where you want to emphasize the vastness of the space, or for architectural shots where you want to capture the grandeur of a building.
Pro-Tip: Be mindful of distortion. Wide-angle lenses can stretch things near the edges of the frame. While this can be a cool creative effect, it’s generally not flattering for portraits unless used very carefully.
10. Compress with a Telephoto Lens
On the opposite end of the spectrum, a telephoto or zoom lens (typically 70mm and above) compresses perspective. It makes distant objects appear closer to each other than they actually are, "stacking" the layers of a scene on top of one another. This creates a sense of scale and can reveal relationships between elements that you wouldn't notice with the naked eye.
Think of a street scene where the buildings in the background look like they are right behind the person in the foreground, or a mountain range where distant peaks appear as a towering wall behind a closer hill. This exercise encourages you to look for layers and depth in a completely different way.
Pro-Tip: Find a high vantage point to make the most of telephoto compression. Looking down on a city or a landscape will give you more layers to work with and stack in your frame.
11. The Dutch Angle
Break the rules of horizontal and vertical lines by intentionally tilting your camera. This technique, known as the Dutch Angle or Dutch Tilt, immediately creates a sense of unease, dynamism, tension, or energy. It's used heavily in cinema to convey disorientation or psychological distress.
In photography, it can be a powerful tool to make a static scene feel more active. A portrait can feel more edgy, a street scene more chaotic, and an action shot even more energetic. The key is to use it with purpose, not just as a random tilt. Ask yourself: what emotion am I trying to create by unbalancing the frame?
Pro-Tip: Use the Dutch Angle sparingly. If every photo in your feed is tilted, the effect loses all its power. Save it for shots where you really want to make a statement and create a specific mood.
12. Focus on a Single, Tiny Detail
We often get so caught up in capturing the grand scene that we miss the beauty in the small details. This exercise challenges you to do the opposite. Instead of shooting the whole flower, focus on a single drop of dew on one petal. Instead of the whole building, capture the texture of a single brick or the peeling paint on a window frame.
This micro-perspective forces you to slow down and observe your environment more closely. It’s a form of photographic mindfulness. These detail-oriented shots can make wonderful additions to your Instagram feed, breaking up the wider shots and adding a layer of texture and intimacy to your visual story.
Pro-Tip: If you have one, use a macro lens for this. If not, use the "macro mode" on your point-and-shoot or phone, or simply get as close as your lens will allow you to focus.
13. The Silhouette Challenge
A silhouette changes your perspective by forcing you to see your subject as a pure shape, stripped of all color, texture, and detail. It's all about form and outline. To create one, you need to place your subject in front of a much brighter light source—like a sunset, a sunrise, or a bright window—and expose your photo for the background.
This technique is incredibly effective for creating dramatic, moody, and universally appealing images. It adds a sense of mystery and allows the viewer to project their own story onto the anonymous shape. The exercise is to spend a golden hour session only shooting silhouettes.
Pro-Tip: For a clean, sharp silhouette, make sure there is a clear separation between your subject and other elements. If a person is standing in front of a tree, their outline will merge with the tree. Position them against the open sky for the best results.
14. Play with Negative Space
Negative space is the "empty" area around your main subject. Far from being empty, this space is a powerful compositional tool. This exercise challenges you to intentionally compose your photos with a large amount of negative space. Place your subject off to one side or in a corner of the frame, and let the rest of the image be open sky, a blank wall, or a calm sea.
Using negative space this way changes the perspective on your subject's importance and context. It can make the subject seem small and isolated, creating a feeling of minimalism and peace, or it can give the subject "room to breathe," directing the viewer's eye right to it without any distractions.
Pro-Tip: Think about where your subject is looking or moving. If a person is looking to the right, place them on the left side of the frame, leaving negative space on the right for them to "look into."
15. From the Inside Looking Out
Your immediate environment can be a powerful framing device. This exercise is simple: shoot from inside a location, looking out. This could be from inside a car, a tent, a cafe, or your own living room. The interior acts as a foreground, framing the world outside and telling a richer story.
This perspective adds a personal, narrative layer to your images. A photo of a rainy street is one thing; a photo of a rainy street seen from the cozy interior of a coffee shop, with a warm mug in the foreground, is a completely different story. It grounds the viewer in a specific place and experience.
Pro-Tip: You can choose to have either the interior or the exterior in focus, depending on the story you want to tell. Focusing on a detail inside (like raindrops on the window) while the outside is soft can be incredibly atmospheric.
16. Capture Motion with a Slow Shutter
Change your perspective on time itself by using a slow shutter speed. This technique, also known as motion blur or long exposure, blurs anything that moves within your frame while keeping static objects sharp. It’s a fantastic way to convey energy, speed, and the passage of time.
Try it on a waterfall to create that silky, ethereal look. Use it on a city street at night to turn car headlights into vibrant streaks of light. Or, try "panning"—following a moving subject (like a cyclist) with your camera while using a slow shutter speed. This will blur the background but keep your subject relatively sharp, creating an incredible sense of motion.
Pro-Tip: You'll need to keep your camera perfectly still for these shots, so a tripod is highly recommended. For panning, practice a smooth, fluid motion from your hips to get the best results.
17. The "Follow Your Shadow" Project
For one full day, make your primary subject your own shadow. This might sound strange, but it's an incredible exercise in seeing light. As the sun moves across the sky, your shadow will change in length, direction, and sharpness. This forces you to think constantly about the position of the light source and how it interacts with form.
You'll start to see compositions everywhere—your shadow stretching over textured pavement, interacting with another person's shadow, or falling across a colorful wall. It’s a fun, personal, and surprisingly profound way to understand the fundamentals of light and perspective.
Pro-Tip: Try this during the "golden hours"—the periods shortly after sunrise and before sunset. The low angle of the sun will create long, dramatic shadows that are perfect for this project.
Photography is ultimately the art of seeing. As I've learned in my own journey, and as photographers like Goh Ling Yong teach, the best camera you have is your own creative eye. These exercises aren't just one-off tricks; they are training drills to help you build your "visual muscles" and break free from predictable habits.
Don't feel overwhelmed by the list. Just pick one exercise that excites you and dedicate your next photo session to it. Leave your expectations at home and just play. You'll be amazed at the new and exciting images you start to create.
So, which perspective-shifting exercise are you going to try first? Head out, give it a shot, and share your results on Instagram. Don't forget to tag us in your post—we can't wait to see the world from your new point of view
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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