Outline or not? Planned photo shooting or not?

Time Forward, © EEG

Outgrown Dreams, © EEG

As a scientist, I love rigor. Experiments need to be planned, analyses need to be outlined, all statements in the paper need to be justified with evidence. Yet when it comes to writing or shooting I do zero planning. I don't outline, I don't sketch images.

My stories start with a voice. Characters come first, then settings. I get to know my characters as they form in my head. I don't know what they want, I don't know what they'll do. I put them in some awkward situation and go from there. I can't plan, because I don't know what's going to happen next. If you've read my stories, you know that I always have some scientific concept revolving behind the scenes. That's where I get my inspiration. I read about some new concept that's just been discovered and I think, "What if ... ?" And that becomes the conflict in my story.

Shooting's pretty much the same. Many photographers out there are not too fond of post-processing. They plan their shootings carefully so that they can spend the least amount of time post-processing. I LOVE post-processing. If I shoot an image that's ready I have no fun. I want to create the image, not just shoot it. So I'll take ten different images and combine them together. Sometimes I only have one piece of an object I want to use and I'll fiddle with it until I can reconstruct the rest. My images aren't perfect because of that. And yet I love them because of that, because of the hours I spend on the computer watching them grow, one layer at the time. I also use Photoshop Elements instead of the more sophisticated (and way more expensive!) CC6 because again, I don't want software that does stuff for me. I want to do it myself.

What about you? What kind of writer/shooter are you?

Waiting for the Rain, © EEG