I am not what you’d call a planner. I have always kind of winged things in life, and somehow it just works out. Whether it’s my job, my love life, or my photoshoots, I primarily rely on instinct, and the results have, amazingly, turned out pretty good.

So here I am at the end of summer 2025, planning my ass off for a shoot with the amazing Kaitlyn Hicks. We’ve been shooting together for a few years now, and she’s quickly become someone I can call a good friend. With that in mind, I now feel pressure not to let her down with my requests for random photoshoot ideas.

I had seen some inspiration for a sunset shoot using flash to get a beautifully colored sky while keeping the subject well lit. A relatively simple idea I hadn’t tried before. With summer quickly sliding away, I knew I had to act fast. According to the forecast, there was one day that lined up with Kaitlyn’s schedule, a clear sky, and warm weather. It was also the middle of the week, with school back in session, so I figured the beach would be pretty much abandoned. I enlisted my lovely wife, Krista, as my photo assistant and chauffeur, and she could bring our new puppy along for his first beach day.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself for getting all the moving parts in order a week in advance, only to start the drive up to Lake Michigan and notice the sky was much cloudier than the forecast had suggested. We carried on, sharing new music and talking through ideas for the amazing sunset shoot that was about to happen. I checked the radar once or twice, and the clouds were only above us, not above the lake. We were golden.

WRONG.

Once we arrived, the cloud cover was thick and it was pretty damned windy. Luckily, it was warm enough not to be completely miserable, but all my careful planning had just gone out the window. I was honestly feeling a bit bummed, but when you have a beautiful model and an abandoned beach, you just start taking pictures and see what happens.

We got to the beach a few hours before sunset, which gave us plenty of time to settle in, and shooting with Kaitlyn quickly put me at ease. We started in the tall grass along the dunes. I added a prop here and there, capturing a vibe I can only describe as, “My partner’s lost at sea and I’m not sure when they will return.”

As we moved closer to the water, I took out the flash, put on a blue gel, and that’s when the magic happened. It was not my intent to light things this way, but holy crap, the gray skies that were working against us at first turned into our best friend. What I had in mind didn’t compare to how epic and powerful that thick cloud cover ended up being.

Once I saw the potential, all bets were off. Now I had Kaitlyn down at the water, parting the seas, welcoming whatever the lake had to offer. She was powerful, the waves crashed, the sky loomed. It was a hell of a shoot.

I don’t know if the planning helped or hurt, and I don’t think I learned any lessons about whether my laissez-faire attitude toward life is helpful or a hindrance. But whatever the case, I’m glad my sunset shoot fell apart.