Reviewing my 7x5 2025 Assignment

I recently went on a short trip to Paris. A lovely city that’s plagued by over-tourism.

On this trip, I wanted to make meaningful images; avoid hero shots of the Eiffel, or photos of tourists in touristy places taking selfies. I got paralyzed overthinking and I came back home with nothing but disappointment.

After reflecting, I realized that if I couldn’t make something meaningful, I still needed to practice photography; even if it means I will take photos that have been taken thousands of times or photos that I don’t necessarily like.

So instead of doing the sensible thing and buy more gear to feel good about myself, I decided to deliberately practice by doing these weekly exercises I called “7x5 self-assignments” (in hindsight, ’exercises’ makes more sense than assignments).

The idea is very simple and has been done in multiple shapes and forms: I take and share 1 photo every day for 5 weeks. That’s 7x5 or 35 photos (Incidently, all photos are shot in 35mm focal length). I started the exercises on the 1st of December 2025 and ended on the 4th of January 2026.

The weekly themes I practiced:

• 1st week: Red subjects
• 2nd week: Square aspect ratio & in black and white
• 3rd week: ICM
• 4th week: Shooting words not subjects
• 5th week: Gimmick week

Every week, I kept notes of how my photo walks went and what I’ve learned. Here’s a summary:

Curating photos is hard

Some days I come back with a few photos, other days I came back with more photos than I expected. Having to pick a single photo for the day to share out of a 100 that all have a common theme is difficult. Learning to shoot and sequence under time pressure is an important skill that I need to focus on more.

Consistency > everything else

I found out that the weeks where I committed to the same shooting setup or following the same concept went much smoother and I was less prone to burning out. Consistency also extends to settings. Keeping the same camera settings and not having to fiddle with camera during the shoot eliminates decision fatigue and indecisiveness, or at least a big part of it.

It’s normal to make “bad” images

I didn’t take photos that I personally like on every day but I had to pick one and share it regardless. Everybody makes bad images. It’s all part of the practice.

Attention doesn’t make a photo meaningful

I avoid sharing photos on social media as much as possible. For this assignment, I’ve only published here on my website and on the foto app . Some of my favorite photos barely got any *digital* attention whereas some photos that I didn’t like as much got a lot more attention. Beauty in the eye of the beholder after all. However, I have tried not to curate my photos for attention and this point is a reminder for the future.

Would I do it again? Definitely. I think 5 weeks is not a big commitment (compared to something like the 365 day project). However, next time, I would focus more on consistency than variety. For example, a one-month-long consistent project is something I look forward to, hopefully, in the near future.

Overall, those 5 weeks were a pleasant change in my daily rhythm. I got to go out of the house every day, explored new parts in my town, and made some nice images in the process.

You can view all the photos I published in the assignment page .