I saw a technique used where there was a block with three parts:
1. Image (wrapped in an anchor tag)
2. Heading (anchor tag with heading text)
3. Paragraph (regular p tag with synopsis content)

e.g.

<li class="block">
<a rel="nofollow" class="thumb" href="#"><img src="images/placeholder_service_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" /></a>
<a class="h3" href="#">Good SEO Heading</a>
<p>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Vestibulum tortor quam, feugiat vitae, ultricies eget, tempor sit amet, ante. Donec eu...</p>
</li>

With the image tag there was a rel="nofollow" on the wrapped anchor tag. So the idea is that the users still has the ability to click the image and go to the details page, but the image link does not rank. When users click on the heading text, that is only what ranks for that specific page.

Q: Is this the correct approach? Does this even do anything? What is the best practice?