Pre-Shooting Workflow

Sharing my preparations before the actual shooting...

Brain Storming

Normally this is where I gather my inspirations from the genre I wan to have in my portfolio or from a confirmed job from the pictures or drawings in the internet. Brain storming includes locations, models' face type, weather, timing, gears I might need to use. All important for the actual shootings. From there I get the whole idea and the flow I would follow(often time we get lost half way but not "panic" as you will know as you read on). Locations is the trickiest part normally, many times we cant find the similar locations, more so if its overseas so I will always visualize one location that if its possible that I could use software to create one with minimal effort. Timing is to make sure you you have enough time for the whole thing and the golden hours and etc etc. Model facial type is to determine the posing in the later part. I normally don't change lenses as I shoot, so plan your gears-to-use correctly, no point bringing a 300mm to a small confined room, so plan well. Changing gears in the middle of a on going event would also mean you might lose moments.

Sketches

I don't find a lot of people doing this nowadays but a lot of old timers told me they always and still does it. Sketches gives you a better planning of how to use the locations, the compositions, the posings. It also serves as a proposals that your models would love to look at if you get to meet her before hand. I always push myself to create 36 sketches before any shots, because I don't expect the model to really accept them all. Sketches will also save your time when you are shooting because both the model and you have a mental note on what to do once the shootings sessions starts.

Meeting with the models

You could skip this part if your models is very familiar with you or they are well adaptive to the role they will be playing on the actual shooting. This meeting is normally about getting to know each other. Tell them what you plan to do, what will you do normally and what will you wan them to prepare for. Normally the models would respond to what they can and cannot do. Show them the sketches on this meeting. It often breaks the ice from they absolutely don't know what to do or expect to have a total grasp of what to do and what to expect from you in one meeting. Also a lot of them would have confident that the shooting will not be a wasted day without a fruitful productions, trust me, a lot of them rather be shopping if it is.

Preparing the gears

After everything is set, at least 1/2 day before, I would always have all my batteries charged, memory cards emptied and cameras cleaned. Slot in the memory card into the card slot and packed into the bags. Make sure everything is functional and if you found something that went faulty, immediately find alternatives to replace that gear.

Arriving at the locations

First thing I find the light directions, checking the exposure, determining the white balance while the model would prepare. I prefer not to ask the model to post for me at this stage. Then I would prepare for the very first frame. First few frames are sorta fine tuning ones... Just to get your initial settings corrected if needed. and also gets the model ready for the real shooting.

After that, continue what you were there to do. Feeling confident and you know where the shoot is going to take you in your mind. The model will be kept entertained as well because she now has full confident that things would turn out great by the end of the day because you as the photographer had thought out the whole process.

Cheers!
Happy shooting!