The Questions You Should Answer Before Every Shot

Five simple questions can change how you approach a scene, even when the location is familiar and the light is average. Ask them before you press the shutter and your results stop feeling accidental.

Coming to you from e6 Vlogs, this thoughtful video lays out a five-question checklist Roberts runs through before making a frame. He starts with something that sounds obvious until you actually answer it: why are you here, at this exact spot, right now? Did you come on purpose with a plan, references, and expectations, or did you stumble into a view and need to react fast? Those two mindsets push you toward different choices, and you can feel it in the images you make. If the stop is unplanned, Roberts nudges you toward experimentation instead of trying to force the scene into a “known good” formula. If you planned it, he points out the risk of shooting what you expected to find instead of what is in front of you.

Then he moves to what you’re actually choosing inside the scene: what do you see, and what do you like? That sounds like taste, but he treats it like a decision you can sharpen. Are you taking the classic view everyone takes, or are you hunting for a version that looks like it came from your own feet and your own timing? If it’s a crowded “honeypot” location, that question gets uncomfortable fast because it forces you to admit when you’re copying the postcard. Roberts also stresses clarity: the viewer should know what the subject is, not after a long stare, but on first contact. He talks through common building blocks like color, lines, shapes, foreground interest, and how a weak midground can quietly ruin a promising frame.

Where the video gets more interesting is how he ties the scene to your internal reaction without turning it into vague motivation talk. Roberts asks what the place feels like, and he treats that feeling as part of the job, not a bonus. A calm scene asks for a different approach than a harsh one, and “rainy and miserable” can still be worth shooting if the mood shows up in the final image. He also pivots into practical control: how you use the camera, whether you go handheld or lock in with a tripod, whether you reach for a wide angle lens or compress the scene with a telephoto lens. He runs through choices that change the story fast: f-stops, shutter speed, where you focus, whether you freeze motion or allow blur, white balance, vertical versus horizontal, and color versus black and white. He also hints at a harder question that goes beyond settings, the one that separates “I was there too” from “only you saw it that way,” and he explains how he trains himself to answer quickly instead of standing around second-guessing. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Roberts.