Landscape photography often begins long before we pick up a camera. We study maps, check weather forecasts, research locations and develop a clear idea of the photograph we hope to create. 

However, any experienced landscape photographer will tell you, the gods laugh when men make plans. Nature rarely cooperates, particularly here in the UK, where the weather is, at best, chaotic and, at worst, unfathomable.

More often than not, a plan tells us where we will begin. But it rarely outlines a clear path to where we will ultimately end up. Which raises an important question: when should we stick to the plan, and when should we let it go?

Stacking the Odds

In landscape photography, nothing beats being in the right place at the right time.

On the surface, planning is simply a case of checking the weather forecast and selecting the location that will give us the highest chance of success. What sounds easy in principle is arguably the biggest challenge we face.

“Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.”

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

But while plans are of limited value, the process of planning is essential. Planning forces us to consider the story we are trying to tell and identify the conditions we need to tell it. After all, it is much harder to tell a sad story on a sunny day.

A good plan increases our chances of success, but Mother Nature always has the final say.

Burns was Bang On the Money

The Scottish poet Robert Burns observed that "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." More than two hundred years later, landscape photographers continue to prove him right.

The biggest challenge planning creates, and the reason so many photographers disregard it, is expectation. In most cases, a clear vision of what we want to create leads inevitably to disappointment, at least in the short term.

Beyond the skill of planning itself, we must also learn when to stick doggedly to an idea and when to search for fresh opportunity.

And you won't find the answer on YouTube.

Knowing When to Let Go

Knowing when to let go of a plan is perhaps the hardest skill in landscape photography. It requires judgement, and judgement only comes with experience.

The trouble is that experience offers no guarantees. Even the world's greatest photographers sometimes pursue the wrong idea or overlook a better opportunity. Nobody gets it right every time.

Fortunately, success depends less on judgement than it does on tenacity. Every missed opportunity teaches us something, and every return visit improves our understanding.

The most successful landscape photographers often live by a simple motto: if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

The irony is that successful landscape photographers need two seemingly contradictory skills. They must be organised enough to plan their outings carefully, yet flexible enough to abandon those plans when circumstances demand it.

Neither skill is sufficient on its own. Planning without spontaneity leads to frustration. Spontaneity without planning leaves too much to chance. And luck is a fickle mistress.

The goal, then, is not to follow a plan blindly, but to use it as a starting point. To venture out with a clear intention, while remaining open to whatever opportunities the landscape presents.

Because, more often than not, the photograph we set out to create is not the one we come home with.