Photography and My Expectations

I know we are all aware about having expectations when getting ready to go shoot something. ESPECIALLY if its landscape, or animals………..

So how do I handle those times when I’ve made plans, spend money and made all sorts of arrangements with a goal of capturing “that special” thing and not getting that shot I had in my mind? How do I come away not feeling as though I wasted time/money having not come away with the thing I was after?

I try to be open to seeing different things and being receptive to shifting my thoughts to be more in the moment of what is happening and not be so fixated on a specific end result. Sure, I try to tell myself “You may have not gotten that thing you were after, but you did get this image, and this image and this one too”, that does work and sometimes it doesn’t. So, sometimes I handle it well and other times not so well.

I try to be very aware that expectations are such a dangerous thing and I can really set myself up for some level of disappointment. In my mind the bigger issue is that it removes me from the moment because I’m not seeing what I want to be seeing which really makes me miss what is really going on. I think that when I’m more centered, grounded and thinking “clearly”, I can have the thought in my mind about what it is I’m hoping for, but the KEY to me, is being aware of everything that’s happening around me all the time and if that “thing” I’m hoping for happens, well then, lucky me!

The more I think about photography, the more I realize that it’s not always about taking the photo, it’s about how I can approach my life and everything in it including the photography