The first time I thought "I can do this"

I've told a lot of stories about how certain shoots happened, where they happened, how they were arranged or what gear they were shot with. However I dont always mention what the shoot meant to me.

Here's one with the stunning Abeer Younis that actually has quite a bit of meaning to me. I had done a few shoots before this one, mostly just learning the functions on my camera and how to trigger flashes etc, basically technical learning. At the time a lot of my shoots were coming out quite nicely but it was mostly a surprise to me. I had studied lots about how to do these things, but I didn't know how they were going to look, I was just trusting that the tutorials I had watched and books I had read were giving good advise.

As I shot more the results still continued to improve but every shoot was still a surprise, often a pleasant one, but there was always a feeling of uncertainty that I hadnt planned how the shots would look, I was essential following a bunch of memorized technical steps to create what I hoped would be a good image.

Its like writing a piece of music without listening to it where you know you're writing all notes in the correct key and in a time signature that makes sense. The chances are if you follow those rules you'll write something that sounds musical, you just didnt have a plan for what that music would be.

So fast forward to this shoot. I decided I wanted to do things differently and make an exact plan for the type of images I wanted. I spent time creating mood boards and paying attention to what made those images good so I could create something with intent. This is my favourite image from that shoot. Its honestly the first photoshoot I set out to achieve a particular look and the actually achieved it. This is the first time I looked at the results and thought to myself "I may actually be able to do this".