Embrace The Unknown
As a photographer who straddles the line between hobbyist and professional, I’ve learned that sometimes the best shoots happen when you throw your plans out the window. Case in point: during my recent trip to Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, I had arranged to shoot one of my girlfriend’s friends in advance. Once I arrived though, the friend had to leave town unexpectedly, leaving me without a subject and with time to kill for a few of the days while my girlfriend worked.
I reached out to some second degree contacts and strangers through Instagram and had some leads but nothing really solid. Then one morning over breakfast at Somos, I spotted an attractive guy with a Weimaraner at a nearby table and mustered the gumption to approach him about posing the following morning. He was enthusiastic about collaborating, but when I reached out the next day, he couldn’t make it. You know how it goes: people get excited in the moment, then life gets in the way.
Instead of wallowing in disappointment, I grabbed my camera and headed to the beach with no agenda, no specific vision. Just me walking the shoreline, seeing what caught my eye. I know this is something many photographers do regularly, and that I should do more often, but it still hasn’t become a natural habit for me.
I ended up photographing lifeguards in their towers, capturing those long quiet stretches between rescues. My girlfriend had mentioned their volunteer program, so I knew these people were part of a tight-knit community. I always carry stickers so people can find me after I photograph them, and when I handed one to a lifeguard, we got talking. Instead of just taking the sticker and moving on, he mentioned I should swing by their group workout the next morning if I was serious about finding people to shoot.
So I did.
That spontaneous decision led to meeting an entire crew of potential collaborators. A couple of them asked if I could get snaps of them, I took a big group photo when they finished, and more than a few reached out afterwards on Instgram. What started as a failed plan became the foundation for something much better.
The lesson? Sometimes the universe has better ideas than we do. When your carefully laid plans crumble, find the opportunity to make something happen anyways. The best opportunities often come disguised as detours, and the most authentic connections happen when you stop trying so hard to force them.
Check out some of the pictures I captured HERE