When Plans Don’t Map Out | Photo Essay

Summer is the time to take a break from school, enjoy a few weeks off from work, and disassociate from your daily responsibilities.

You plan a road trip months in advance to traverse the state to take pictures and relax, but sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Part of me was hoping to do something like this. Get together with some friends and do nothing but the thing we love the most. More than half a year ago me and a few close friends planned a week road trip to take in the summer. We did something like this last year so it’s not the usual think of a plan but nothing comes to fruition. When you think everything is going according to plan, and you think everything has been accounted for, life has a way to reveal its perfect imperfect plan.

A week before the trip, some important family matters came up so we decided as a group that we shouldn’t go on the trip and plan it for another date where we can all make it. I had to cancel the booked hotels, tell my work that I was coming back to work next week, and find something else to pour my built up energy into. I can’t lie, it was a big bummer but I would feel just as guilty if I did end up going on the trip knowing a part of the gang was not able to make it. Instead of dwelling on the negatives and what could be, I’m one to try and find the positives of a situation or what is next.

At this time I am just getting back into film. I got some new camera gear for this occasion and bought a good amount of film for the trip. The gear I was hoping to use for the first time was the Long Weekend Point and Shoot and the Mamiya 645. The point and shoot was going to be more for my partner so I can stick to the bigger guns.

With the new gear and built up film from the icon in the community, Tim Ryugo, I bought some more Portra 400 and a couple of HP5, Cinestill 400 & 800. From what I’ve been told, when you think you have enough film, you probably don’t. It’s best not to think of your bank account when putting this into practice (not the best advice but the advice we like to hear).

Reflecting back on the positives of a plan going wrong, I thought it would be a good idea to escape on the weekend of the trip with my partner so we could have some more personal time. Long story short — I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I imagined.

I planned for us to stay at Mammoth Lake so we would have an easy time to visit Yosemite and venture around the Alabama Hills. We left Friday after work for Mammoth Lake and were planning to get there at midnight to give us enough time to get some rest for sunrise. We ended up getting to our hotel at 2am Saturday morning. We left a little later than we would have liked to and our dog threw up twice in the back seat of the car on the way through the mountains to Mammoth Lake. When it came time for sunrise, both of us were not mentally there to get up so we slept in but for a little too long. We finally started shooting in Yosemite at 3pm and only snapped for a few hours because it became overcast and too dark.

I didn’t feel like the day was successful.

The next day we got up at a better time and were able to get to the first spot for some soft morning light at some hot springs. Things were starting to look up so we took our good vibes and started to head down the 395 highway to the Alabama Hills. Another moment of things not going according to plan. The heat was more than we could handle walking around Alabama Hills. It was annoying to deal with to say the least because the views were breathtaking but it felt like we were on a timer when we would cross from shade patch to shade patch. Move too slow and we would melt. I started to notice a repeating pattern with our luck so we made the executive decision to already start making the 7 hour drive home at lunch.

If I thought I was bummed before the group trip was initially being canceled, I felt worse only shooting around 4 hours where this weekend trip was specifically geared for getting a lot of snapping in. Heading back up 395 and back into the mountains to cross over, I was exploring my mind with what went wrong and what I could have done better. Second guessing if I should have done something else or shouldn’t have done anything at all.