One habit that I am trying to embrace is planning my photo shoots. It’s nice to have some idea of where I’m going and at what time, but even that doesn’t always work out. Shit still happens, and sometimes I get sidetracked by an unplanned hike – I can’t be the only person that happens to.

Planning has helped me get my shit together most of the time, but there was also that day last week that I headed out to get some shots of the sunrise and left my camera on the kitchen counter. I recently acquired some new lenses. In order to make room in my camera bag for all of my lenses, I moved the spare camera body to a tote that I usually don’t take with me when I go out to shoot photos. So I had every lens I could need for any situation but without a camera body, that didn’t do shit for me.

Moral of that story? Acquiring new equipment didn’t save the shot. It actually lost it for me. What would have saved it? Better planning.

You need the tools to do the job. But it’s equally true that the best camera to have is the one you have with you. I recently spent 3 mornings freezing my ass off at a public boat launch because I didn’t like the photo I got with my camera. I preferred the one I took with my iPhone. I wanted to try a wide-angle lens on the camera and a different angle to take the photo in hopes of re-creating the one I liked.

After three days of arriving at the same spot, at the same time, and waiting for patiently for the sun to rise, I never did get the photo that I had in mind. The sun didn’t light the mist rising off the lake in the way it had on the first day that I was there. The wind was pushing the mist down the lake, and the conditions just weren’t what I wanted.

There was a choice to be made – do I pack up my equipment for the day and head back to my parents’ house to get warm? It was a whopping 38 degrees F outside, and my warm clothes were all at home in Michigan. Or do I just work with what’s available?

I decided to take the photo that I had in mind even though the light wasn’t what I was looking for. Although I didn’t get what I wanted, I did get something I was satisfied with.

The whole situation could have been avoided if I had just taken my time the first day that I was there. Instead, I rushed the shot because I was focused on my destination. I was planning to hike somewhere else. I wanted to get to where I was going at the time I had planned, instead of just giving myself the gift of time to capture the light that was, in a word, magical. As a result, I missed it. That’s the downside of planning – getting so fixated on the plan that spontaneity goes out the window.

The light isn’t always going to cooperate – it usually won’t. There will (frequently) be people in the way. Someone will have tossed their garbage where you’re trying to work. You don’t need to run out and buy a bunch of new things to deal with the problems. You need to decide if you’re going to work around it or get run down by it.

I rarely go out with an idea of the exact photo that I am looking for. That mindset has only brought me disappointment. I’ve seen it disappoint others, too. (Check out Seeking the Bear and The Person I Don’t Want to Be)

I usually have a shot list, but that’s more a matter of brainstorming and helping myself be open the creative opportunities that arise. If I want a photo of a bench at dawn, backlit by the sun, I know I need my wide-angle lens, my medium range zoom lens, the tripod, etc. I have an idea of the camera setting that are going to work for me. If I’m working around water, I know to bring along my polarizing filter. I know I want my cable release if I’m doing long exposures.

While I do try to plan ahead, there will always be the unexpected. The deer who steps out from behind the trees. The bear cubs scampering up the highway. Flowers growing in a field. Mist rising from water. There’s no way to plan for everything. 

Because it’s impossible to plan for everything, it’s good to know how to compensate. The light won’t always be right, and I can guarantee that most of the time it’s not exactly what you have in mind. You’re going to forget something, or lose something. Some jackass is going to get in your way, or call the cops on you for standing in a cemetery taking photos. Your battery will die at the worst possible moment and leave you scrambling for the spare. Your tripod will fall apart. I have experienced all of these in the past few weeks.

Making plans is great. At least in my case it keeps me from mindlessly staring at Google Earth for hours, trying to figure out where to go next. Making plans will never be an adequate substitute for knowing how to use the equipment that you have. It might or might not help me remember to grab the camera off the kitchen counter before going out.

Making plans also sucks. The downside is the tendency to spend too much time planning and not enough time actually going out and getting something done. I’m never going to be able to plan for every contingency no matter how much time I spend on it, so my strategy is to plan enough to get the job done and then just go do it. And, because I learned my lesson, I plan to allow enough time in the plan to take advantage of other opportunities that arise along the way.

Some days it even works out.