Taking great images, being a photographer, becomes easier with practice in the sense that the more practiced you are, the more equipped you are to take great images. Practicing keeps your vision and skill sharp. Doing this is easy; you just need to commit some time to it.

Recently I went on a walk with my wife and took my camera with me. I followed some of Jay Maisel's advice: If you have a camera with you, you don't have to worry about not shooting. Not only did I need the physical exercise, I needed the visual push-ups.

One camera, one lens is what I took with me, just the D200 and my 70-200 f/2.8 VR. Taking Maisel's advice, I left the hood at home and the lens cap in my pocket, and I left the camera on. My ISO was 400 and I was in aperture priority, f/4, matrix metering, cloudy white balance (which I later changed in post from a ColorChecker target). I could have used a light meter, but I wanted to get reacquainted with matrix because it's important to know how to use it when there isn't time to take out a hand-held. I still had the Sekonic with me in a belt pouch. When I have time, I still prefer the hand-held.

At a park just down the block, this orange basketball hoop rim and white net caught my eye in a way I'd never seen before, layered on top of a darker green background. I went for the color and graphic elements and got a series of shots. The rim and net have some nice dimension to them, helped by the angle of the backboard. I like this image for its simple graphic elements and saturation under the overcast light. It's a spot I can see returning to again for different light and framing.

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70-200 @ 300 mm, ISO 400, aperture priority f/4, matrix metering, -2EV exposure bias (-1 from -1 compensation)

Is it spectacular award-winning photojournalism? Probably not. But it's a good visual push-up. I was thinking about color and layers and design, not shutter speeds, f-stops or ISOs. Could I have gone to 2.8 to try to separate the background more? Sure. Could I have gone to f/8 and tried to sharpen it more? Sure. Could I have gone to ISO 100 or brought the exposure up? Sure. As I said, I did bracket so I had those images to choose from. But this is the shot I like, a bit more saturated, and I like the way the orange and white stand out against the dark green.

This shoot wasn't about technical details. It was about me feeling out images with no pre-planning, relying on my instincts and innate technique. And it was fun. I didn't shoot anything that I didn't think would be fun or worth shooting. Just because you have a camera with you doesn't mean you have to use it.

When I uploaded my images, the first thing I did was cull the rejects and apply my overcast color profile, which arranges colors into their proper places under the given spectrum of light. Lens corrections are done automatically on import. I did quick blackpoint and whitepoint settings in Lightroom, plus sharpening, white balance and a touch of clarity and vibrance. No other edits were done. I bracketed three exposures so I could see later what one I liked best. This is how Maisel shoots, and for photo-walking it's a good strategy because with digital it's inexpensive, quick and easy to hone in on the images you like in post and reject the ones you don't, so it's not like I spent hours culling or wasted film. I took about 30 to 40 frames for the entire walk and I culled it down to 18 and had my favorites edited in about 20 minutes.

Doing these visual push-ups is a good idea and it's one I plan to follow through on. When you keep photography fun and do it because you love it, you get better images. This is because technical details and equipment aren't getting in the way. Doing these exercises is also a good way to train yourself so that technique becomes second nature. The goal is to make the transition from seeing to capturing as effortless as possible. Then you can take your photography to another level. I enjoy taking my craft on the go and being free to shoot what I want when I want. Try your own visual push-ups, and I think you'll enjoy them.