All the photography we do at one point was totally new to us. Most of the time, it doesn’t start a panic attack. We know it’s part of the process, accept it, and we’re able to move on. There are times though when, be it either a new professional job, a personal project or for an important family member, we take on something new in our photography and the panic sets in. We accept the challenge for better or worse to make a photo that’s way, way, way outside our comfort range (nice of way of saying, we have no bloody clue what we’re doing). The panic starts because of the expectation placed on the final photograph and the unknown of how we’re going make that expectation even close to happening. Not that’s it’s any comfort, but you’re not alone! I for one have done this many, many times. And after the panic settles down, putting logic to the problem does find an answer.
Doing your homework is a HUGE part of your photographic growth. And when you get an A on that homework, the photograph turns out. The question is, how do you do that homework? Here’s where many photographers fall down, they simply don’t think the problem through to find the answer for their own photography. Prior to my first venture to Alaska to photography Grizzlies, I went to the zoo and watched them and photographed them, in good light and bad. How do they move, what is a cute pose, what does their pelt require in exposure compensation? Before I went to take my first pilot portrait for my project, I took my truck and parked it in a huge, empty parking lot and set up my lights, had Sharon stand there and worked out the lighting issues. How far down the truck does the light fall off? What does the light look like on the ground? What does the same light look like on the pilot? Those questions were answered before I ever showed up at the plane.
When I went to photograph the Palos Verde Blue Butterfly, a critter needing a DoD Clearance to access, a species thought to be extinct only to be rediscovered a decade later and I was the only one allowed to photograph it after it was rediscovered (no pressure here!), I made a paper blue life size cut out of it and worked out the lens, distance from lens to critter and the lighting to take its photo biologically accurately in the smog filled skies of So Cal before I ever saw it. I could fill up pages and pages of examples of all the “homework” I’ve done prior to the real shoot to work out all the bugs possible prior to showing up for the shoot. No, things do not always work out in real life exactly as the testing. But at least with the answers from the testing firmly in your mind (and written down for reference when you get flustered), when the unknown pops up, you have at least a starting point to figure out the solution to the problem at hand. Yes, watching classes online or in person help but it’s still up to you, the photographer to do the homework for YOUR shoot to produce the photo that’s tells YOUR visual story. That’s what photography is all about. So, put on your thinking cap and look at other photographs for ideas, do your homework, grab your camera and make it happen. Confidence in yourself and your camera is how you overcome the panic of the new.