When working on the basic skills, I used to tend to get a book, read the rules and get to work. This led to gradual incorporation of the rules at best. The reason that is slow is that you get no opportunity to “do over” or fix your mistakes. I think that most of us (who are not already pros) tend to pick up our cameras and go out to “shoot” with a vague idea of what we are going to shoot. Maybe, that is an exaggeration and we know what we are shooting that day but have no idea about next week. When we shoot like this, most shots are unique which is good in a way. However, when we are practicing the rule of thirds and we get a picture of a slam dunk dead center we may not get to try that shot again (unless we go to a basketball game on day 2).
This summer, I picked a couple of books on the basics of composition and exposure and I chose to shoot primarily pictures of Blue Herons. I found that I would see the same bird repeatedly in the same spot, which allowed me to approach the shot from a number of different places technically which in turn led to a much greater understanding and appreciation of the concepts I was working on.
I know this might not be the thing for everyone, but it certainly helped me. I would love to hear how other people approach practicing the foundation skills. Talk to you later.