I get very nervous before every photo shoot, and I think that’s very healthy. I even like that feeling of alertness that precedes the immense pleasure of taking photos.
I think it’s very advantageous to be uneasy before important moments, because it helps you avoid making mistakes.
My nervousness has several phases. There’s the nervousness before leaving home, when I check a hundred times that everything I need is in my backpack, especially the smallest piece of equipment, but one that makes any photo shoot impossible: the signal transmitter between the camera and the flashes. I make sure I have batteries (always two pairs, the ones I use and a spare pair just in case). That the camera batteries are charged (although one battery is more than enough, I always carry three, just in case).
The second phase of nervousness is in the studio, during setup. Usually, the model is already with me. Hundreds of things that could go wrong come to mind. This nervousness is also good, because it helps prevent all those things that could go wrong from going wrong.
When I finish setting up, I take the first test shot, and when I see that everything is working, I breathe a sigh of relief. That’s usually when I stop being nervous.
However, sometimes there is a third type of fear, which is when, in the middle of a photo shoot, things don’t turn out the way you want them to. This fear usually creeps up on you. You set up a light, take a photo, check it, and realize that you haven’t achieved the desired effect. You make adjustments, but the same thing happens. You make more adjustments, but you still can’t get what you’re looking for. Then, the model usually realizes that something is wrong and asks about it. Naturally, you say it’s nothing and keep trying. It’s usually five minutes of agony until everything goes right again. Five minutes where you think you’re a lousy photographer, five minutes where you think the model is going to discover that they’re in the hands of an impostor. Five minutes where you think that the photos you’re most proud of were taken by someone else or, worse, turned out well by chance.
This nervousness is definitely not healthy because, by believing that you’re useless, you may end up being so.
The main advice is to try to stay calm and not obsess. Despite all the precautions you take, a photo shoot is an open and relatively uncontrollable space, where it’s not always easy to predict the results of a particular course of action. If something goes wrong, it’s best to take a couple of deep breaths.
The second important tip is that even if you think you’re facing Armageddon, you mustn’t let the model notice. A photographer is like a doctor. It’s essential that the patient trusts the doctor to ensure healing. In the same way, a model has to trust the photographer to stay relaxed and give their best. Furthermore, in the worst-case scenario, you can console yourself with the thought that a relatively bad photo can be saved in post-production.
(Lightroom doesn’t fix everything, but, as with bad cooks, it’s the sauce that covers up the mistakes).
The moral of this whole story is that we must keep fear (or nerves) at bay and turn that tension into our ally.
