Sometimes a shoot doesn’t go according to plan. Here’s an example- even though it’s photos and not video, there’s still a lesson here.
This evening I set out to get some still photos of tonight’s sunset. A friend of mine- he’s basically an amateur meteorologist- messaged that tonight’s prospect for a beautiful sunset was good. After getting the message I quickly made a plan about where to shoot. After a short drive and just under a mile hike I got to the spot I had chosen right in time for sunset.
While I had the talent, and equipment (yes, I took a tripod on a hike) to get the shots I wanted, they simply didn’t work out. A great sunset isn’t a cloudless sky. It’s enough clouds to pick up some of the colors that come with that time of day. The clouds just didn’t appear like I believed that they would. Sure there was some color, but nothing spectacular. Had I known that I wasn’t going to get the photos I believed I was going out there for, I would not have invested the time or the effort… or would I?
Sometimes a shoot simply does not go according to plan. If it does not, you regroup and either make a new plan, or decide to try again later. That’s about all you actually can do. Tonight didn’t work out like I had hoped. Was it a waste of my time? It’s all about perspective. I could choose to look at it like that, or I could chalk it up as time I spent practicing my craft. If I choose that perspective then I have lost nothing.
I tell my students all the time that the more they practice the better they’ll become. Example: I have so much practice editing video with Adobe Premiere Pro, that it’s all muscle memory at this point. I sit down to cut something and simply don’t think about the mechanics of what I’m doing… I just do it. I don’t have to focus on how I’m doing any of it so it gives me the advantage of being able to channel all of my focus into the creativity side.
Basically, if you love what you’re doing it’s never a waste of time. It’s practice. Even after doing my thing for literal decades, I can still use the practice.
ts
Leave a Reply