~How Do You Plan Your Shoot?~

I get asked a lot of how do I go about planning a shoot.  Do I write all of my ideas down or draw primitive or really detailed photos?  What is the process?  Well, honestly, all of the above are ways that I plan for a shoot, but I also will shoot inanimate objects as practice subjects such as the photo below.  I've never shown or told this before, but this has been one of the most helpful practices I have done!

Shooting inanimate objects as a stand in for a real person, I can do test shoots, so to speak, and play with what kind of lighting I want, backdrop, poses, even styling! I can literally see how the light will fall on the subject at a certain time and place.  To even go further, I can even play around with editing to see how I want the final piece to look.  Instead of just writing my ideas down or even horribly sketching them, I can see them come to life, or at least take the next step in doing so, but going through this process of pre-shooting.

In the above image, I used one of my daughter's dolls and sat her in front of the window at about noon. I have a shoot planned for this setting and I needed to see how the light will be filtered through the blinds at this certain time.  I really love how it envelopes around the doll, so I will be using this time, space, and pose for my upcoming shoot.

Whatever way you plan your shoot, I encourage you all to try something new.  This just happens to be my personal way, stage 3 of planning, to get prepared.  By preparing as much as you can, you can help your shoot go more smoothly, you will be able to communicate with your subject on exactly what you are wanting, and you will already have an idea in mind of how it will look in the end.  You must take into consideration of those moments where inspiration may hit you during the shoot, and by all means go with it!!  But a little planning and preparation never hurt anyone. ;)

From my work flow to your's, I wish you all a wonderful, artsy day!