Effortlessly right

Effortlessly right

The feeling of a perfect gearchange, the way when the chisel seems to pull itself through the wood, or perfect sharpness just happens as you turn the focus ring. The last piece of the jigsaw fits in as if it was magnetised, or the ball curves past the goalie into the back of the net (or the goalie’s hands are drawn to the ball, if you support the other side!)

Photographically, it’s often the model who moves into precisely the pose I was about to ask for, or who magically picks up precisely the right prop. That’s what put me in mind of this effortless thing: a remote shoot with Stephanie Dubois yesterday. Things just kept going perfectly. I’ve reflected on why – it seems to be a characteristic of working with Stephanie – and I’ve come up with a couple of possible answers.



One idea is that it’s all about luck – and I don’t really believe that. Luck, generally, is the result of the characteristics of those involved, some of which is about compatibility of styles and tendencies, and some about the innate ability to plan or to extemporise. Or both.

And maybe that’s it, really – that a little planning is necessary, and then the ability to see and exploit opportunities, to bring a creative eye to what’s on offer: that works in most areas of life. Preparation, and keeping options open, but without being committed to a script that’s not working: whether Plan B has to exist is not entirely clear to me.

Creative stuff is different from a space mission, where it’s important to have a defined way forward for every contingency. The benefit of experience can be that one has memories of a lot of situations and a bank of options that have been tried before: this can provide both a wealth of possible solutions to any problem, and a mindset that there will always be something that will work…