I rarely sit down and try to come up with an entire editorial.
There usually isn't a complete story in my head. I don't know what the wardrobe will look like, where I'm going to shoot it, what the poses will be, or even who will be in front of the camera.
Most of the time, it starts with one thing.
A word.
An object.
A piece of clothing.
A location.
Sometimes even something as simple as a horse, an old camera, a motorcycle, or rain.
That's it.
And then I start building.
One Thing Becomes a World
When something catches my attention, my first thought usually isn't, "How do I photograph this?"
It's more like, "What does this feel like?"
That's where everything begins.
A horse isn't necessarily about photographing someone standing next to a horse. It can become freedom, independence, vulnerability, strength, or something untamed.
Rain isn't just water falling from the sky. It can feel lonely. Heavy. Romantic. Dirty. Cinematic. It can completely change the emotional weight of an image.
An old wooden camera can become a story about seeing. A motorcycle can become rebellion or independence. A dress can suggest an entirely different time period.
The original object almost becomes an anchor.
From there, I start asking what belongs in the world surrounding it.
What would this person wear?
Where would they exist?
How would they carry themselves?
Would the images feel polished or imperfect?
Would they be in color or black and white?
What kind of light belongs there?
One decision creates another, and eventually that single idea starts developing its own identity.
I Don't Start With Poses
One thing I've moved away from is building shoots around a collection of poses.
I would rather build an atmosphere.
If I understand who this person is supposed to be and what world they exist in, the posing becomes much easier. Instead of trying to recreate something from a reference image, I can give the model a direction and allow something natural to happen inside of it.
Walk.
Wait.
Look away.
Interact with the object.
Ignore the camera.
Sometimes the best images happen between whatever I originally thought the photograph was supposed to be.
That's part of why I don't want every detail figured out before I arrive.
I want the idea to have structure, but I also want enough room for the shoot to surprise me.
Then There Is the Music
Music has become almost inseparable from my photography.
Sometimes I find the song after I've already created the concept.
Other times, the song changes the concept completely.
There are certain songs that immediately create images in my head. It might be the lyrics, but a lot of the time it isn't. It's the texture of the guitar, the way the vocals sound, the era it reminds me of, or simply the emotion I feel when I hear it.
A song can tell me what an editorial should feel like before I know what it should look like.
That's why music becomes part of the world I'm creating.
If I'm imagining something nostalgic, I might hear a song and suddenly know the images need to feel like they came from another decade.
If the song feels raw, maybe the photographs shouldn't be perfectly clean.
If it feels melancholic, maybe the model shouldn't be smiling or performing for the camera.
If it feels restless, maybe the photographs need movement.
The music isn't background noise.
It's part of the concept.
Sometimes I'll listen to the same song repeatedly while planning an editorial because I don't want to lose the feeling that originally made the idea interesting.
The Idea Changes Along the Way
The final editorial is rarely identical to the first idea.
And I think that's a good thing.
Maybe I can't get the location I originally wanted. Maybe the wardrobe changes. Maybe I meet a model who makes me see the character differently. Maybe the weather does something unexpected.
Instead of treating those things like problems, I've learned to let them influence the work.
The original idea gives me a direction.
It doesn't give me a set of rules.
That's probably one of the biggest changes in the way I approach photography now. I'm much less interested in perfectly executing an image that already exists in my head.
I'm more interested in discovering what the idea becomes.
Building Backward From a Feeling
When people see a finished editorial, they see everything at once.
The model.
The clothes.
The location.
The styling.
The color.
The composition.
The photographs.
But that's not how I usually see it in the beginning.
In the beginning, there might only be one word written in my notes.
Untamed.
Or maybe there is just an object sitting in my head that I can't stop thinking about.
Then I start pulling on that thread.
The object creates a feeling.
The feeling suggests a character.
The character suggests wardrobe.
The wardrobe suggests a location.
The location suggests light.
The music gives all of it a heartbeat.
And somewhere along the way, it stops being a single word or object and becomes an editorial.
That's the part of photography I've fallen in love with the most.
Not simply taking the photograph.
Building the world that has to exist before I can take it.
