My photo shoots at twilight usually follow a very specific timeline.  I arrive at the location about half an hour before I want to shoot, set up the lights with my assistant, get the camera placed where I want it, take a few test photos and then absolutely freak out while looking at said test photos.  It’s like clockwork.

The problem (and cause of the freak out) is that the photo I’m aiming to shoot is basically at night and the test photos are taken while it’s still light out, so what I see in camera is about as far away from my vision as can be.  Here’s one of the test photos from this shoot.  You can see that it’s a lot different looking and a lot worse than the final version.  I mean, honestly, it’s horrible.  There is no artistry to it at all and it’s blecch.

15 minutes later, when the (natural) light has completely disappeared and everyone is in place, I start actually shooting, look down at my camera’s viewfinder and breathe a welcome sigh of relief as I see that the photos look pretty good.

One of these days, you’d figure that I would get used to this, but it hasn’t happened yet.