Warm up Photos

In my last post I mentioned a warm up photo. I would like to explain.
Whenever I start a photo shoot, whether it be in the studio, or walking through a park, it seems to take a few shots to "get in the zone". The first few shots rarely are my best.
Today I noticed I made a conscious effort to turn off the "business" side of my brain, to stop doing profit and loss calculations in my head, so the "artistic" or visual side could take over. Mind you I was distracted with the battery issue, but it was interesting in an introspective sort of way.
The right-brain left-brain descriptions seem to apply very well to me. When I am my most visually cognizant, my arithmetic skills are very poor. For me, it takes a little while to switch modes of thought. Like an athlete's warm up, I need to stretch my visual muscles.
There used to be a school of thought that during a portrait setting, you should shoot the first "roll of film" with the camera empty, to relax the subject in front of the camera. I think a part of this is also to relax the photographer. As I visually explore, I often have to get the obvious shots out of the way so I can look for the deeper meaning. Photography is very much a process. One shot leads to another approach, and another interpretation of the subject.
It has been said many times before, but that is one of the real strengths of digital photography. This warm up is free. There is no cost of film and no cost of a lost image because there is no film in the camera.
This warm up can also happen faster with digital because you can easily see the image you just took and use this as a starting point for the next image.
If I was to give advice to other photographers, I would say to shoot the same subject repeatedly, but with a different approach each time. Shoot until you have no idea how to shoot it again, then take one more...

Flamingo at a "tourist trap"