Sometimes the Best Plan is to Improvise
Whilst progressing into the senior levels of management during my career in the Fire and Rescue Service, a common aspect of the promotion process at that time was undertaking psychometric testing and the personality profiling to identify your strengths and weaknesses.
For me, my profile was always one that came out as being a logical thinker, with strong planning and structured approaches to my work. One of my so-called weaker points was being less inclined to be ‘creative’ which I found amusing considering some of my key accomplishments during my career were created from scratch and adopted by others across the Service as best practice.
More often than not, the results from this profiling would form part of the professional discussion with the ‘weaker’ parts of the personal profile being the areas where the interview panel would to delve into. The inevitable question would be pitched along the lines of “can you tell the panel about a time you had to take an innovative approach to achieve a successful outcome?”
My profile wasn’t a surprise to me really considering the early part of my career was built around participating and conducting standard fireground drills then in the latter part of my career utilising standard operational procedures and doctrine to command at emergency incidents using prescribed safe systems of work, however I still maintained the ability to think outside the box as they say.
Within the context of my photography, I still adopt some form of a planning approach, even if it is just to check out weather forecasts, tide times or keys times relating to the sun and the moon. With architectural images I will normally do some online pre-planning looking for interesting subjects using google maps and move around the location getting some ideas what may or not be possible. I will also draw up a number of locations to potentially visit as the one thing you cannot account for, are the unforeseen variables that are encountered on the day of the visit, for example, construction work wrecking the pre-conceived composition. On those occasions I normally move on to my next location and keep a map pin active at the location for a revisit at a later date.
My recent trip to Valencia was one that didn’t fully go according to plan and the normal strategy of moving on also wasn’t an option on this occasion therefore, it was a case of adapting and improvising to the situation at the time. The City of Arts and Sciences is a wonderful place to visit to see the design work of the Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava and had been on my ‘bucket list’ to visit for some time. I planned a 3-day visit and had done all my usual pre-planning prior to visiting. The first morning I arrived an hour before sunrise and had a walk about to take in the location and that is when I discovered that 2 of the 4 main buildings that I wanted to capture were going to create challenges. Hemisferic which has the look akin to an alien spacecraft, was not illuminated which meant the reflective water images were not going to possible during the hours of darkness. I also noted that temporary barriers were also positioned to prevent access to the building so a low-level, head-on image would not be possible during the daytime. L’Agora was even more problematic as full-blown construction work was ongoing resulting in it being surrounded by an 8-foot temporary metal sheeted perimeter fence. The water feature area had also been drained and portakabins along with construction materials were strewn across the place so the pre-planned image I had for this building was not possible.
Ordinarily I would have taken what images I could and then moved on but having travelled 1500 miles to be here, it was a case of using the time productively and improvising whilst gaining a better understanding of the location as I knew that morning I would be looking at a return visit in the future. I therefore spent the next 3 days trying out different compositions, studying how the light at various times of the day interacted and changed the character of the buildings and something I rarely do, that is how best to use a human figure in a composition for my architectural images.
I’m now back home and have begun to sort through my images and started to process those that I am happy with. Reflecting on my visit, I could have taken a negative view on the experience, but I have still came back with a number of images, including images of Hemisferic and L’Agora from alternative perspectives. I also have a better knowledge of the location so when I do return, I can make the best use of my time there. I have also introduced a new technique into my processing workflow, so all in all, my time in Valencia was well spent.
It has also resulted in me questioning some of my own approaches and has served as a reminder to not always be as structured in my approach to photography and embrace the opportunity to freelance. Whilst it is sometimes good to have a plan, I now realise the risk is, it can also be a hinderance and result in a blinkered approach and negate opportunities to be more creative.
I doubt I will ever undertake psychometric testing and the personality profiling again, but I will answer that interview question in a photography context by having a banger of an image that came about from taking a different approach from one that was pre-planned.