I learned years ago how important it is to shoot the same subject and location over and over again.
The practice teaches a photographer how to form deeper relationships with the subject, and better understand how the primary subject interacts with secondary elements – like the way high tide may introduce a stunning new reflection, or how a blaze of stars in a dark sky might be the missing element that lifts the image to new heights.
Revisiting a subject also serves as valuable “practice.” You cannot develop your skills in anything without a healthy (or obsessive) amount of practice. It always surprises me to find out aspiring photographers think that they can simply photograph their two-week vacations once or twice a year and come home with compelling imagery! It doesn’t work that way.
Run a single loop measuring 4.16667 miles within a single hour. Now do it again. And again. Now keep doing it – starting a new loop on the hour, regardless of how fast you finish the previous one – until there’s only one runner willing or capable of doing so. Welcome to the simple – some might say sadistic – concept of the Big Dog Backyard Ultra in Bedford County, Tennessee.
In 1969, the people in charge of Apollo 11 trusted a 23-year-old engineer in a back room of mission control to make one of the most consequential decisions of this decade-defining mission. And they did so in seconds, without deliberating or debating.
Next time you’re faced with a decision, ask yourself: how can this decision be made on the lowest level? Have you given your team the authority to decide? If you haven’t, why not? If they’re not able to make good decisions, you’ve missed an opportunity to be a leader. Empower, enable, and entrust them. Take it from NASA: the ability to delegate quickly and decisively was the key to landing men on the moon.