Plan to Fail
At the time of writing, I am just over two weeks away from embarking on my Autumn trip to the north of Scotland. During the run up I have been skipping in-and-out of different states of mind: pre-planning, not pre-planning, visualising compositions, not visualisation compositions, considering experimental methods of making woodland images and disregarding experimental methods for making woodland images.
If you are a landscape photographer you will have, no doubt, set off on a trip with certain parameters of expectation, be they your own or those subconsciously installed into your mind through the observation of others’ art. And no doubt you have returned from such a journey with photographs you had not pre-visualised, photographs that took you by the hand and walked with you into the unknown. Isn’t it funny how these are always the photographs that live with us the longest?
I don’t want to digress into a conversation about originality (if such a thing can truly exist), however, I do want to discuss whether having expectations and engaging in pre-planning can ever truly fulfil us creatively. Are these a benefit to our work, or do they automate our experiences, making us passengers on an expressionless tour of a landscape made a little less exciting by having some form of imagined, photographic itinerary.
How is it possible for you to express yourself when you have applied stringent planning and pre-visualisations to your time in nature? These are the questions I am asking myself over-and-over prior to departing on my trip. Is there actually a positive correlation between pre-visualisation and quality of experience? Does there also exist a positive correlation between pre-visualisation and photographic success? I suppose that depends entirely on your intentions.
Confusing Intentions
I think the reason I have been flirting with the idea of pre-visualising the work I’d like to create on this autumn trip is probably a sense self-doubt. I suspect this doubt has arisen due to both featuring in the podcast F-Stop, Collaborate and Listen as well as being a featured photographer in On Landscape magazine - both of which have happened since my most recent photography trip to Scotland in summer. I’m very grateful to have been asked to do both, and even more grateful for the kind feedback I’ve had from people that have both listened and read.
The problem is, I’ve now laid myself bare for all to see, thus creating a strange sense of pressure and expectation for myself. Of course, this is purely self-manufactured, but it is there. I believe this is the cause of this feeling that I need to pre-visualise and overly-plan my autumn trip. It’s distracting me from the very reason I make photographs in the first place: to process emotion and speak without words.
I’m not deluded into thinking everyone is watching what I’m doing, but, irrational or not, it is making me feel differently about this trip; more so than I have ever felt before. I am certain that when I arrive in the north of Scotland in just over two weeks that these feelings will melt away and I will connect with subjects, scenes and textures; many of which I could never have pre-visualised.
When I’m wandering alone with just the sound of leaves and running water, there will be no pre to my visualisation; it will be live and happening. I will immerse into the landscape as I always have done. It is essential that I do. Otherwise I would not connect to what is around me, leaving the trip soulless and empty.
Fail to Plan
This is what I intend to do. Free myself from the shackles or expectation, forget that my work so far seems to have some loose form of style and just exist in the moment. I will fail to plan. Fail to succeed. It’s how we grow, right?
There is a type of photographic process that I want to experiment more with in the woodland. I do have intentions to try this, but I am not allowing myself to pre-decide how and where I will try this technique.
Life is what happens when you’re not making plans. I’m not sure who first said that, but it’s true. You can’t plan for the first time you felt proud about your work. You can’t plan for the first time you witnessed a special view. You can’t plan for the first time your eyes met those of another. So why plan how I will express through photography? Don’t listen to the voice of that inner control-freak, that’s the path to derivative work. Listen to the now.
Emotions aren’t waiting for us, we carry them into the wild with us. They can’t be guessed, they can’t be calendared. Sadness is a lament only the trees will hear. The secrets they keep. They know me better than any of you. You can’t plan for emotions.
Ignore the pressure. It isn’t really there. Ignore the pre-visualisation, it never happens that way. The future is frightening. It’s no surprise we are tempted to plan. But, the future is waiting. Whether we plan for it or not.
Let it happen. You’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’m sure of it…
Love is in the present tense.
