Top 18 'Heart-over-Head' Photography Exercises to practice for Making More Soulful Images in 2025 - Goh Ling Yong
In the relentless pursuit of the "perfect" photograph, it's easy to get lost. We chase tack-sharp focus, flawless exposures, and compositions so precise they could be measured with a ruler. We upgrade our gear, memorize technical charts, and spend hours pixel-peeping. And yet, so often, we look at our technically perfect images and feel... nothing. They have the body, but they lack the soul.
This is a familiar struggle for many photographers, a plateau where technical skill outpaces emotional depth. The truth is, the most memorable photographs—the ones that stop us in our tracks and linger in our minds—rarely succeed because of their technical perfection. They succeed because they make us feel. They are born from a place of intuition, vulnerability, and genuine connection. They are a product of the heart leading the head, not the other way around.
As we look ahead to 2025, I want to challenge you to shift your focus. Let's move beyond the settings and the specs. Let's practice photography as a form of seeing, a way of connecting more deeply with the world and with ourselves. I, Goh Ling Yong, have built my career on this very principle: that a photograph's power lies in its ability to communicate a feeling. To help you on this journey, I’ve compiled 18 of my favorite 'heart-over-head' exercises designed to unlock your intuition and help you create more soulful, meaningful images.
1. The 'One Lens, One Hour' Walk
How often do we swap lenses, thinking a different focal length will magically create a better photo? This exercise strips that crutch away. Pick one prime lens (a 35mm or 50mm is perfect) and go for a walk for one hour. You are not allowed to change it.
This limitation forces you to move your feet and change your perspective. You'll stop thinking about your gear and start truly seeing the world in front of you. You'll learn to work with what you have, adapting your vision to the frame instead of adapting the frame to your vision. It’s a powerful lesson in creative problem-solving and appreciating the constraints that can, paradoxically, set you free.
Pro Tip: Don't just walk aimlessly. Give yourself a small, one-block radius. The tighter the constraint, the more you’ll have to look for details you'd normally miss.
2. Shoot Without Looking Through the Viewfinder
This one is about letting go of control. Set your camera to a reasonably wide aperture (like f/8) and use zone focusing, or simply set your autofocus to a central point. Now, shoot from the hip, from a low angle, or by holding the camera above your head. Don't look at the screen or through the viewfinder.
The goal isn't to create perfectly composed images. It's to capture the raw energy and feeling of a moment without the self-conscious act of framing. You’ll be surprised by the candid, unexpected compositions that emerge. It’s a wonderful way to break a creative block and rediscover the playful, unpredictable nature of photography.
3. Photograph a Feeling, Not a Thing
This is a core tenet of soulful photography. Instead of heading out to shoot "trees" or "buildings," choose an emotion. Your mission for the day is to capture the essence of "nostalgia," "chaos," "serenity," or "loneliness."
This abstract goal forces you to think metaphorically. How can light, shadow, color, and form be used to evoke a specific feeling? Serenity might be found in the soft, diffused light on a still body of water. Chaos could be a blur of traffic lights at a busy intersection. This exercise trains your eye to see beyond the literal and capture the invisible.
4. The Sound-to-Sight Translation
Put on a piece of instrumental music—it could be a soaring classical symphony, a moody jazz piece, or an ambient electronic track. Close your eyes and listen to it all the way through. Pay attention to the rhythm, the mood shifts, the textures of the sounds.
Now, with that music still fresh in your mind, go out and create a photograph that feels like that song. Is it sharp and staccato, or soft and flowing? Is it full of high-contrast drama or muted, gentle tones? This exercise connects your auditory and visual senses, opening up new pathways for creative expression.
5. The 'Familiar Made Strange' Project
We often suffer from "visual numbness" in our own homes and neighborhoods. We see these places so often that we stop seeing them at all. This exercise is designed to break that habit. Your task is to photograph your own home as if you were a stranger or an alien visiting for the first time.
Get down on the floor and look up. Focus on the way dust motes dance in a sunbeam. Find abstract patterns in the texture of a rug or the peeling paint on a windowsill. What stories do these familiar objects tell when viewed with fresh eyes? This practice teaches you that compelling images are everywhere, not just in exotic locations.
6. Converse Before You Capture (Portraits)
If you're making a portrait, the most important tool you have isn't your camera; it's your ability to connect. For your next portrait session, commit to spending the first 15-20 minutes with your camera down. Don't touch it.
Instead, have a real conversation. Ask your subject about their day, their passions, their worries. Listen intently. The goal is to build a small bubble of trust and rapport. When you finally do pick up the camera, you won't be photographing a stranger anymore. You'll be photographing a person you have a genuine, albeit brief, connection with, and that authenticity will shine through in the final image.
7. The 'Imperfect' Self-Portrait
Forget the flattering angles and perfect smiles. This exercise is about honesty. Create a self-portrait that expresses your current internal state, whatever that may be. Are you feeling tired, hopeful, anxious, or content?
Use photographic techniques to communicate this feeling. Intentional motion blur can represent a racing mind. Hiding your face in shadow can convey introspection or uncertainty. Using a fragmented reflection can speak to a complex identity. This is a vulnerable but incredibly powerful way to use photography for self-expression, not just documentation.
8. Chase 'Bad' Light
The "golden hour" is beautiful, but it can also become a creative crutch. For this exercise, intentionally go out and shoot in the middle of a sunny day, when the light is harsh, contrasty, and traditionally considered "bad."
Your challenge is to find the beauty in it. Look for deep, graphic shadows. Find ways to use the harsh light to create bold silhouettes or highlight intense textures. Shooting in difficult conditions forces you to become a more resourceful and creative photographer, teaching you that there's no such thing as bad light, only different kinds of light with different emotional qualities.
9. The Sensory Snapshot
Find a comfortable spot, either indoors or out, and close your eyes for a full minute. Shut off your visual sense and tune into your other senses. What do you hear? The distant hum of traffic, the rustle of leaves? What do you smell? Damp earth, coffee brewing? What do you feel? The warmth of the sun, the rough texture of a bench?
After one minute, open your eyes. Without overthinking it, take one single photograph of the very first thing that captures your attention. This exercise hones your mindfulness and helps you create images that are rooted in a full-body, sensory experience of a moment.
10. Write a Haiku, Then Shoot It
Poetry and photography are close cousins; both seek to distill a big idea or a complex feeling into a compact, potent form. A haiku, with its strict 5-7-5 syllable structure, is the perfect tool for this.
Write a simple haiku about a scene, a memory, or a feeling. For example: “Winter window pane / A single warm breath appears / Fades into the cold.” Now, your task is to create a single photograph that captures the essence of your poem. This practice forces you to identify the core emotional truth of a scene before you even lift your camera.
11. The 'Color Story' Challenge
Color is pure emotion. This week, choose a single color—like blue, red, or yellow—and create a small series of 5-10 photographs where that color is the main character.
Don't just look for objects of that color. Look for the way that color makes you feel. Is the blue melancholic and vast, or is it calm and peaceful? Is the red passionate and energetic, or is it angry and alarming? This exercise will make you incredibly sensitive to the psychological impact of color in your compositions.
12. Photograph the 'In-Between' Moments
The big moments—the kiss, the goal, the grand reveal—are often what we're told to capture. But the real soul of a story is frequently found in the quiet, unscripted moments in between.
Focus your lens on the periphery of the action. Capture the nervous hands of a speaker before they go on stage. Photograph the shared, knowing glance between two friends after a joke. Look for the sigh of relief, the moment of quiet contemplation, the aftermath of a celebration. These subtle, candid moments are often far more emotionally resonant than the main event. This is a technique I, Goh Ling Yong, find consistently yields the most powerful and authentic storytelling images.
13. The 'Intangible' Photo Hunt
Create a scavenger hunt list, but instead of tangible objects, fill it with abstract concepts. Your list might include: "Growth," "Tension," "Silence," "Freedom," and "Connection."
Now, go on a photo walk and try to capture each concept in a single frame. This is a difficult but rewarding exercise that pushes your creative thinking to its limits. How do you visually represent silence? Perhaps through an empty room filled with soft light. How do you show tension? Maybe through two trees growing so close their branches are forced to bend around each other.
14. Embrace the Blur
We're so conditioned to chase sharpness that we often forget the expressive power of blur. For this exercise, set your camera to a slow shutter speed (start with 1/15s and experiment) and intentionally photograph a moving subject.
Pan your camera with a cyclist, capture the swirl of leaves in the wind, or turn the frantic energy of a crowd into a wash of color and motion. The goal is to convey the feeling of movement and the passage of time, not to freeze a single, static instant. Blur can be poetic, energetic, and dreamy—a powerful tool in your emotional toolkit.
15. The Shadow Self Study
For one entire shooting session, you are forbidden from photographing the subject itself. You can only photograph its shadow.
This simple constraint forces you to see the world in a completely new way. You'll start noticing how shadows stretch, distort, and reveal the texture of the surfaces they fall upon. Shadows can be mysterious, playful, or menacing. They can tell a story about an object or person without ever showing them directly, adding a layer of intrigue and abstraction to your work.
16. Find a 'Photo Pen Pal'
Photography doesn't have to be a solo activity. Partner up with another photographer, whether they're a local friend or someone you connect with online. The game is simple: one person sends a photograph, and the other person must "reply" with a photograph of their own.
The reply shouldn't be a literal copy. It should be a response to the mood, theme, color, or feeling of the original image. This visual conversation encourages you to think more deeply about how images communicate with one another and helps you see your own work through someone else's eyes.
17. The 'Single Subject' Immersion
Pick one simple, everyday object. It could be a coffee mug, an old chair, a single window, or a tree in your yard. Your challenge is to create 20 distinct and different photographs of that one subject without moving it.
This exercise is a masterclass in perspective. You'll have to change your angle, get up high, lie on the ground, shoot through other objects, change your focal point, and experiment with light. You’ll quickly learn that a subject is not just one thing; it's a thousand different possibilities depending on how you choose to see it.
18. The 'End of the Roll' Mindset
Even though we live in the age of infinite digital storage, this exercise asks you to return to the mindset of film. As you go about your day, pretend you only have one single frame left on your roll of film (or on your memory card).
This mental constraint forces you to be incredibly deliberate and discerning. You won't waste your "last shot" on something trivial. You'll wait. You'll observe. You'll save it for a moment that truly moves you, a moment that feels significant and worthy of being preserved. It’s the ultimate practice in mindful, intentional photography.
Your Journey Starts Now
Making soulful images isn't about finding a magic camera setting or a secret formula. It's about a practice—a conscious and continuous effort to shoot with more intention, empathy, and awareness. It’s about building a relationship with your own intuition.
These 18 exercises are not one-time fixes; they are a training regimen for your creative heart. Don't try to do them all at once. Pick one that resonates with you this week. Immerse yourself in it. See what you discover about the world, and more importantly, about yourself. The more you practice seeing with your heart, the more your head—and all its technical knowledge—will become the perfect tool to bring your unique vision to life.
Now, I'd love to hear from you. Which of these exercises are you most excited to try? Do you have your own 'heart-over-head' practice that helps you create more meaningful work? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. Let's make 2025 a year of beautifully soulful photography.
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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