Pre-Shoot Workflow

Great street sessions begin before you leave the house. A short, consistent pre-shoot routine means you never miss a frame to a flat battery, a full card, or fumbled settings. Build this into a habit until it takes two minutes.

The checklist

Battery charged, and ideally a spare in your pocket. The GR sips power but a cold winter day drains it faster. Card formatted and empty, or trust the 53 GB of internal storage as a backup. Lens clean: a quick wipe of the front element or UV filter. Settings preset: dial to U1, confirm TAv f/8, 1/250, Auto ISO, snap focus at 2m, Hi-Contrast B&W JPEG plus DNG. Strap on your wrist. Filters in your pocket if the day calls for them.

Read the day

Before you go, read the light and the calendar. What is the weather, and therefore the light? Bright sun means hard shadows and snap focus; overcast means soft even light; rain means wet reflections and the CPL. What time will you shoot, and where will the sun be? Is there an event, a market, a festival, a protest, that will concentrate people and energy? A few seconds of planning turns a wander into a hunt.

Set an intention

Decide, loosely, what you are looking for today. Not a rigid plan, but a lens for your attention: today I am hunting shadows, or working the markets, or shooting only at one metre, or pursuing my project. An intention focuses the eye. You can always abandon it when the city offers something better, but starting with one beats starting empty.

Warm up

Your eye, like any muscle, needs warming. Your first frames of a session are usually your worst. Accept that, and make some throwaway frames early to get your seeing going. Do not judge the session by the first ten minutes.

Put it into practice

Write your own pre-shoot checklist into the journal and run it before your next three sessions until it is automatic.