Photography: Those Moments Where You Have to Improvise

Intro by Skip Cohen

It's Marketing Monday and time to bring one of Scott Bourne's posts out of the archives. Although Scott shared this at least four years ago, it's still a perfect reminder to help you get through those times when you have to improvise. 

You can complain because roses have thorns,
or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.
Ziggy

As photographers, regardless of how long you've been shooting, you've witnessed first-hand things don't always work out the way they should.  Murphy's Law seems to prevail all too often, but you've hopefully adapted and anticipate something is going to happen that wasn't in the plan.

Too often, some of you freeze. You panic, maybe even give up. You just haven't had enough experience yet to stay focused and keep things going. Even more difficult is not having the skill set to handle the challenge, but you're not stuck on the escalator!

While Scott is talking mostly about shooting challenges - the same alternatives apply to your marketing and business plans. There's always an alternative and very rarely is anything cast in stone. The problem is keeping an open mind, utilizing support from key people in your network when you hit a wall and never giving up your optimism. There's always a solution, and this quote from Scott says it all:

"Whatever, whenever, professionals get paid to make the shot, not complain about their circumstances. If they need better light or backgrounds for instance – they just make it."  

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© radub85 - Fotolia.com

So You're Out Shooting and Everything Looks like a Lemon!

by Scott Bourne

You want to shoot but you’re out of your element. Maybe you’re on  vacation with the family and for some reason they don’t want to schedule everything around sunrise or sunset. Or maybe you’re on a quick  business trip and the ugly, cheap hotel your boss made you stay in doesn’t exactly trip your trigger. It is easy to find yourself in  situations that don’t make it easy. You are on the road, but you don’t  have the circumstances you need to make a great shot. So change the circumstances.

As professional photographers you understand this all too well. The bride wants to get married when the sun is straight up overhead at noon. The location director thinks the “cool” brick wall would make a great backdrop. Whatever, whenever, professionals get paid to make the shot, not complain about their circumstances. If they need better light or backgrounds for instance – they just make it.

The challenge just requires a positive attitude, some creativity and a willingness to work a bit harder.

• When you're just heading out to shoot and there's no client involved, if you’re somewhere that simply offers nothing exciting to shoot, try switching to macro. Give me any city in America and a one block radius to work in town and I can find hundreds of macro shots. Everything from textures, to insects to flowers – you name it.

• Here’s another idea – learn how to improve lighting using  “subtractive” lighting. Instead of adding light to a scene that needs fill, subtract it from any two sides – which automatically makes the  open area away from those two sides the new main light source.

• Try pan blurs or zoom blurs. Use colored filters on your lenses. Use HDR.

• Try shooting from a ladder or from ground level.
• Shoot at night. Borrow props from nearby locations.
• Plan ahead and do a meetup – try to convince a model who needs portfolio shots to come down and pose for you or a bunch of other photographers to liven things up.

• Try renting or borrowing new gear to give you a new approach.

I’ve been shooting a long time, in all sorts of locations, under all sorts of weather, and in all sorts of light. I’ve very rarely been completely shut out. All it takes is a new way of thinking and you can succeed.