Photo Finish - Elise Penn

The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. - Robert Burns

One thing I enjoy most as a photographer is problem solving; embracing the ominous Plan B. Its very rare that a shoot goes perfectly from start to finish. Whether its dealing with Mother Nature, location issues, equipment mishaps, sinking knee deep into mud and losing ones shoes and having to walk the rest of the time on very sharp rocks in your mud encrusted socks — oops, sorry, delving into the personal memory bank for that one. Anyhow, like I was saying.. as a photographer, you have to be very fluid with your plans and be able to adapt to your environment and your company.

Tonight, for instance.

Originally, the plan was to shoot with NPC figure competitor Elise Penn inside Worlds Gym, capturing some photos in a basic gym environment. One problem. Apparently, San Diegans love to work out at 8pm. Basically, the place was packed, and there was no real room for us to set up without totally interfering with the workout-happy patrons.

Problem.

So instead, we found a little nook in front of the gym with some discarded weight racks along a nice nuetral gray painted wall. All of a sudden, we had a makeshift studio space that still carried some visual elements of a gym.

Problem solved.