It’s #TravelTuesday again and I, Dave Williams, am coming at you from on board the MS Norröna bound for Iceland.
I just finished a week in the Faroe Islands and it was intense! The Faroe Islands lie in the North Atlantic, between the UK and Iceland. They experience the full force of the Atlantic, with nothing at all but open sea all the way down to Antarctica. The wind and rain is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced and that has taught me a valuable lesson about photography.
Always keep your options open.
Sometimes we make plans to shoot a particular subject or location and centre a day or even a few days around getting it done. Unfortunately, sometimes it doesn’t happen. I’m used to this, having come from the arena of fast-paced travel photography before having the freedom I have now, but it’s still a very valuable lesson.
I’d summoned a mountain (by driving) on several occasions with the idea to shoot the mountains rising out of an early morning fog, and in anticipation of this I’d been checking the temperate and humidity forecasts with my fingers crossed. It just didn’t happen, but I had a backup plan. In the opposite direction that I would have shot the fog, I overlooked Kolafjordur. The azure blue water carried in on the Gulf Stream was the foundation out of which gargantuan, dramatic cliffs rose and formed towering mountains.
Rather than walk away from the situation, I fell to the backup plan. I was able to take a stash of images away from the location, albeit not exactly the images I’d planned. It’s all down to having that ‘plan B’ ready to step in when necessary.
Team, always make sure you have options. Have a plan B every time you shoot so if plan A fails, you can walk away with something. We can strive to attain all we’d set out under plan A and, if it doesn’t work, wouldn’t have known unless we’d tried. Plan B will afford us the safety net to ensure we achieve something and to ensure some form of success to keep driving us forwards.
You can watch my progress via my Instagram story, and I’ll catch you all next week.
Much love
Dave
