The Pre Shoot: Preparation Shapes Creativity

Every successful photograph begins long before the camera is on the tripod or the shutter is pressed. Preparation lays the groundwork for creativity, and the Pre-Shoot is where I make sure the essentials —gear, logistics, and personal readiness —are in place so nothing pulls me out of the moment once I start shooting.

Photography is both an art and a craft. The craft steadies you; the art moves you. If you’re just beginning, stay with one camera and let it become your companion. Learn it until every button, every setting feels instinctive. With that fluency, your energy can flow toward the art: the way light brushes across a scene, the rhythm of composition, the story your image longs to tell.

This isn’t to say that art waits until mastery arrives; you’ll create along the way. But the deeper your connection with your camera, the more effortless and fulfilling the journey becomes. Learn the technical craft quickly, because what ultimately matters most is the content; your ability to see and to build visual literacy.

The ability to design a photograph in your mind before you ever click the shutter is what photographers call pre-visualization, and what artists simply call designing. This is how you move from snapshots to intentional images, the kind that consistently become keepers.

When I teach designing, I encourage photographers to build what I call an image bank in their minds: a storehouse of visual ideas to draw on when pre-visualizing. The more you feed this bank, the stronger your visual instincts become. Over time, those instincts show up naturally in choices of balance, color harmony, framing, and timing—or in the use of dramatic light that draws the eye to the subject. These instincts are the quiet guides that transform preparation into creativity.

How you choose to fill your image bank depends on the visuals that inspire you. For me, art history was a feast. I studied it for years in college, not for the degree, but because it was the most exciting slide show I could imagine—with brilliant PhDs narrating the stories behind the work. It was pure eye candy. You don’t need a classroom to experience this. Your local library holds treasures: books on art, design, photography, and, thanks to interlibrary loan programs, even rare works from universities across the country. I’ll never stop feeding my image bank, and my library keeps that habit alive.

I also recommend looking closely at how artists designed the lighting in their paintings. If studying art history isn’t for you, then focus instead on the visuals that align with your own photographic passions. If you want to photograph animals, dive into nature books. If it’s trains, study images of trains. If it’s portraiture, look at the photographers whose lighting and style you admire, even if you don’t yet understand how they achieved it. The simple act of looking with intent becomes your roadmap. It’s like learning music: you study the sheet, practice the notes, and slowly you begin to play. That’s how creative work begins.

I’ll continue with The Pre-Shoot next week and share a studio project that will be part of this article. I’ll show you a simple method I use to gather visual ideas and add to my image bank for a subject I’ve wanted to photograph for some time, a subject that’s challenged me, which is why I haven’t attempted it until now. With the Florida heat pressing in, I’ll be shooting indoors. Until then, I encourage you to go look at some pretty pictures.

And by “pretty pictures,” I mean whatever stirs your imagination and gets your creative motor running.