I love to have a plan for my shoots. I love to have a mood board, a shot list, reference images, a schedule, a location scout, a production binder. I love to have a plan. But I also have enough experience to know that things don’t always go to plan. In fact, things hardly ever go to plan.

If you’ve shot editorials or weddings, you know this all too well. People are late. The location isn’t nice. The weather takes a turn for the worse. A subject whose assistant promised you an hour tells you they have to run to a meeting five minutes into the shoot. And that’s it. Shoot done. Nothing you can do about it. Something always changes.

I’ve often said that my biggest asset as a photographer is my two decades of experience studying performing and teaching improvisation. It allows me to get subjects to open up to me quickly during a shoot, but it also taught me how to deal with ambiguity and the unexpected. Basically, how to not freeze up when things don’t go as expected.

So, when I plan for a shoot, I plan for two things: success and failure.

Plan for Success

If you’ve learned anything about me listening to this podcast it’s that I’m a nerd for productivity and efficiency. So, obviously, I often have a spreadsheet of my time mapped out going into a shoot. Advertising photographers and wedding photographers are used to having a timeline of the shoot day mapped out. 

Unless it’s a headshot or documentary family session, which tend to be pretty straightforward and simple shoots, I almost always have a spreadsheet timeline for my shoots. The exception would be if I only have 10 or 15 minutes with a subject, in which case I limit it to one or two setups.

A timeline for me would include the description for each scene or setup, the shots within each setup, the lens I want to use for each shot, the lights, the status of the lights (on/off), possibly position, and if I have an assistant on set what the assistant should be doing at each point in time.

So, if I’m shooting a musician for a magazine, and I have an hour with them and want to do five setup, I’ll map out my timeline so my assistant is setting up scene #3 while I’m shooting scene #2, and they have a reference for where the lights should be, what state they should be in, and possibly even a lighting diagram or schematic of the setup.

If I have a number of people working with me, I’ll create a hidden page on my website that includes all the necessary production info, such as call times, contact info, locations, maps, a mood board, reference images, etc. I also send everyone that link, they can open it on their phone and save it to their home screen for quick reference during a shoot. I’ll also have this page pinned on my tablet during the shoot so I can see the reference images and mood board nice and large and it doesn’t look like I’m checking my texts.

If it’s a larger shoot for an ad campaign, I recommend creating a printed production binder and have multiple copies on set for people to refer to. You don’t want people on their phones during an expensive shoot.

A great feature in Sprout Studio is something they call One Page. This is similar to a production binder in that it has all the contact info for a shoot, notes, locations, timeline, etc. It’s not as robust as I like to have for an editorial shoot or personal project, but it’s great for a wedding to get the whole team on the same page. 

Again, send the link to your team, have them open it in a browser and save the page to their home screen on their phone for super quick reference.

When you’re planning your shoots, always make sure to take the money shots at the top of the project. Leave room for creativity later on in the shoot, but make sure to meet your brief first. If you’re shooting families, spend 5-10 minutes doing posed shoots at the top of a shoot before you let the kids run wild.

But planning for success is not enough.

Plan for Failure

As Robert Burns wisely wrote, “The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley,” which means our best-laid plans often go awry.

But how do you plan for things to go wrong when you never know what’s going to go wrong? Well, you improvise. A lot of people think improv is about thinking fast and being witty but it’s really not. It’s not about “yes and” or “if this then that.” At its core, improvisation is about accepting and adapting to changing circumstances.

When you study improvisation, you are training your instincts, you are learning how to observe everything being said, being done, and being expressed. You learn to accept the unexpected as gifts instead of problems or conflicts. You learn to assess, accept, and adapt to fluid circumstances.

The training we do prepares us to adapt to those moments. We learn a variety of different skills that allow us to be prepared for whatever happens. When I was starting out in improv, I was told “you’re going to fail, learn to embrace failure.” I hated this rhetoric because I don’t believe you can fail at making stuff up. So, I stripped the concept of failure from my improv vocabulary and banned it as a concept in our curriculum when I ran my own training centre.

In improv, second chances don’t exist. On a paid photoshoot, second chances don’t exist. You don’t get a do-over on a wedding. You don’t get another shot at that magazine cover shoot. If things go horribly wrong, you still need to deliver the images to your client.

If you only know how to shoot in natural light, what do you do when the storm clouds roll in and the sky goes from blue to black? If you shoot headshots on studio strobes, what do you do if there’s a power outage? Your job is to deliver. Failure is not an option.

So what do you need to do? Be prepared. There are a couple of things you can do.

First: come prepared with a backup plan. In fact, if you can set up your backup and have it ready to go. If something goes wrong and you need to move to your backup. Don’t freak out. Just transition over to the backup as if it was part of the plan all along. If you’re on an editorial gig and the location looks bad, have a few short rolls of seamless paper with you.

I mentioned a power outage as an example because it’s happened to me. I didn’t sweat it. I simply moved us to the window and shot with natural light. I didn’t freak out, the client could see I was in control, and I delivered some great headshots. 

So, have a backup plan. That’s the first thing you can do.

Secondly: work the problem. Take a break and assess the situation. Instead of freaking out about not being able to do the job, think about what you need to get the job done.

• Can you use a different light source?

• Is there a nearby location that works?

• Can you find a substitute model quickly?

• Do you have a backup camera or lens?

• How can you make the shot work with an alternate lens?

So, when things go wrong, here’s your checklist:

• Don’t freak out. Stay calm.

• Transition to your backup plan or take a quick minute and work the problem.

• Assess the situation.

• Make a list of possible solutions and start with the best option.

Finally, practice. This isn’t something you can do in the moment. In improv, we didn’t just jump on stage and start making things up. We had weekly rehearsals, 2-3 hours a week, which were more like practices. We did warm-ups, ran exercises, worked on drills and skills, and trained our instincts to deal with situations that would inevitably arise on stage.

Practice. Study. Different techniques. Different lighting situations. Different approaches to your work. Train. Get better. So when problems arise on a shoot, you instinctively know how to handle them without breaking a sweat.

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