original sketch for untitled scene, 2019
finally captured a year later, 2020
For most of my creative work, I tend to shoot on the fly. I’ll have ideas in my head for what I’d like to capture, though they tend to resemble a buzzing swarm of wasps rather than an organized shot list. Other times, I’ll have the studio or environment around me, whatever props we’ve brought along, and the model or friends along for the ride, and try and put pieces together until something fits. I take the picture and rearrange everything to rinse and repeat.
However, for this ongoing project I’ve done largely in collaboration with my good friend Kyle Brand, I’ve tried to emphasize the planning phase, the previsualization phase, to really achieve what we’re going for. Some of these compositions, like the one above, was in my head for at least a year before we put it together. When sketching the idea out to show Kyle, I realized that the lighting and positioning of both the potential victim as well as the threat in this one-panel narrative would prove tricky. I am the kind of person that likes to do as much in-camera as possible rather than combining multiple exposures while editing.
Thus, it took planning, lighting tests, and myself and the model moving around in and out of the car while flipping the rear view mirror every which way to get the best composition. We were sitting in my house the night of the shoot waiting for the rain to fall so we could catch some specular highlights on the windshield from the droplets, which I’m thrilled we were able to get. Hours later, as the clouds finally rolled in, we sprang into action. We lit the scene, I jumped into the driver’s seat, and away we went.
Do I now sketch out all of my shots before going to the camera? Absolutely not.
Have I learned my lesson that previsualizing and planning a shoot takes a weight off my shoulders even if it requires more effort in the long run? I hope so.
If anything, the final image and how pleased I am that it turned out well taught me that I must have patience, and give my art what it needs in order to succeed. If I have a vision, it deserves to be executed to the best of my ability. To fight through the lethargy and anxiety is to fight for myself. That is my new mantra. Let’s pray I remember it.