07/15/2026
I used to show up to sessions with a mental checklist.
The poses I wanted to hit. The setups I had in my head. The shot list I was working through.
And somewhere along the way, I had to put it down.
Not because those ideas were bad. But because every time I was focused on getting to the next thing on the list, I was missing what was actually happening right in front of me.
The candid moment between siblings. The way a dad looked at his kid when he thought no one was watching. The totally unplanned thing that happened when I stopped directing and just waited.
You can't plan for those. You can only be present enough to catch them.
Letting go of the checklist made me a better photographer. I don't think I could have learned that from a workshop or a tutorial. It just took showing up enough times and learning to trust what happens when you stop trying to control it.
