Why I Still Do Some Projects Completely Alone
Most of my work today runs through some version of a team, even if it's a small one, but a handful of projects each year stay completely solo from start to finish. These tend to be the self-initiated ones, where the direction isn't locked in yet and I'm still figuring out what the story is while I'm out there shooting it.
Knowing which projects call for a team and which ones call for solo control has taken years to get a real feel for, and it's still a judgment call I make fresh on every new idea. For a broader look at how I structure projects, staffed and unstaffed alike, the Adventure Travel Photographer's Playbook covers the planning decisions behind both.
The Kind of Project That Stays Solo
Most of my work today runs through some version of a team, even if it's a small one, but a handful of projects each year stay completely solo, start to finish. These tend to be the self-initiated ones, projects I've pitched to myself before I've pitched them to anyone else, where the direction isn't locked in yet and I'm still figuring out what the story even is while I'm out shooting it.
A commercial job with a client, a shot list, and a delivery deadline almost always benefits from more hands. A personal documentary project, built around discovery rather than execution against a brief, often doesn't. The uncertainty that makes a project hard to plan for a team is the same uncertainty that makes it genuinely mine to shape alone.
I don't think solo work is inherently better than team work. It's a different tool for a different kind of project, and knowing which projects call for which tool has taken me years to get a real feel for.
Self-Initiated Work Runs on a Different Clock
Only a couple of shoots I've done this year came from outside my own projects, meaning most of what actually keeps me motivated after a decade of doing this is work I pitched to myself first. That kind of project doesn't run on a client's timeline or a production schedule, it runs on whatever pace actually serves the story, which is a very different rhythm than a commercial day with a fixed call sheet.
Bringing in help changes that rhythm immediately, because now there's someone else's day, someone else's pay, and someone else's expectations riding on how efficiently the time gets used. Solo work lets me follow a moment longer than a scheduled team would ever tolerate, or abandon a plan entirely mid-day if something better shows up, without having to justify that pivot to anyone but myself.
That flexibility is exactly what makes self-initiated projects worth doing in the first place. If I had to run them on a team's schedule, they'd start to feel like client work, and a big part of why they matter to me is that they don't.
What I Lose When I Bring in Help Too Early
I've tested bringing an assistant onto early-stage personal projects before the direction was clear, and it rarely worked the way I hoped. Directing someone else, even lightly, takes a chunk of attention away from the actual observing and reacting a documentary-leaning project depends on. I ended up managing a person instead of watching the moment, which is exactly backwards for that kind of work.
There's also a subtler cost: explaining a half-formed idea to someone else forces it to become more formed than it actually is yet, before I've had the chance to let it develop through the process of shooting rather than through the process of planning. Some projects need that early ambiguity protected, not resolved prematurely just because another person on set needs a clear brief.
On projects with a defined scope from day one, this isn't an issue, because there's already a clear brief to hand someone. It's specifically the undefined, self-initiated work where bringing in help too early costs me something real.
The Freedom of Not Having to Direct Anyone
Running a team, even a great one, means a meaningful share of my attention goes toward keeping everyone aligned: making sure the goal for the day is clear, checking in without micromanaging, stepping in only when something isn't working. That's a skill I've built over years, and it's necessary for bigger jobs, but it's also genuinely tiring in a way that's easy to underestimate.
Solo work removes that layer entirely. There's nobody to brief, nobody to check on, nobody whose day I'm responsible for beyond my own. That freedom lets me put all of my attention into the actual photography instead of splitting it between the work and the leadership the work requires when other people are involved.
It's a genuine relief on the projects where I get to have it, precisely because leading a team well takes real effort the rest of the time. Solo projects are, in a specific way, a break from a part of the job I otherwise take seriously.
Solo Work and the Documentary Mindset
Documentary and editorial work leaves more to be discovered and shaped in the edit than commercial work does, since outcomes can't be fully predicted the way a client brief predicts them. That uncertainty is part of the appeal, but it also means the person capturing the material benefits from being the same person who'll eventually be sitting in the edit trying to find the story inside the footage.
When I shoot a documentary-style project alone, I'm already building a mental map of how the material might cut together while I'm still out there capturing it. That map is harder to build secondhand from someone else's footage, even someone talented, because it depends on instincts formed in the actual moment, not just on reviewing selects after the fact.
This is a big part of why the human-editor question and the solo-shooting question end up connected for me. The same reasoning that makes me protect final creative calls in the edit is what makes me protect solo control over some projects from the very start.
Physical Terrain Where a Team Becomes a Liability
Some of the terrain I shoot in, exposed climbing routes, fast-moving mountaineering approaches, technical trail sections, genuinely gets more dangerous with more people involved, not safer. Coordinating a team through terrain like that adds logistics, communication overhead, and risk exposure that a solo approach simply doesn't carry.
On solo hiking, trail running, or backpacking projects specifically, moving alone often means moving faster and lighter, which matters when a shot depends on being in a specific place at a specific moment, like catching light at a summit before it changes. A team, however capable, adds friction to that kind of time-sensitive movement.
I don't take this lightly. Solo work in remote or technical terrain carries its own risks, and I plan around those risks carefully rather than treating solo as automatically safer. But for certain kinds of terrain, a smaller footprint genuinely is the safer, more practical choice.
What Solo Work Costs Me
Solo projects aren't free of tradeoffs. Without a second set of hands, I miss angles I would have gotten with a second shooter, and I carry more gear and more physical fatigue than I would with support. On a long solo day, I'm my own producer, gear handler, and safety check, which spreads my attention thinner than I'd like on any single one of those roles.
There's also no one to catch a mistake before it becomes a missed shot. On team projects, an assistant or a producer often notices something I've missed because my own attention is elsewhere. Solo, that safety net is gone, and I've had moments where a shot I wanted simply didn't happen because I couldn't be in two places or two roles at once.
I accept these costs because the projects I choose to shoot solo are usually the ones where the tradeoff is worth it. That calculation would look different on a bigger commercial job with more riding on the outcome.
How I Decide When a Project Has Outgrown Solo
The clearest signal that a project needs help is when the plan requires me to be two places at once, a subject on the wall and a wide establishing shot from across the canyon, for example. Once a project's needs genuinely exceed what one person and one set of hands can physically cover, solo stops being a choice and starts being a limitation.
Budget and deliverable count matter too. A project that's scaled up into a full campaign with multiple looks and a tight deadline usually needs a team regardless of how it started, even if the earliest version of the idea began as something small and personal that I shot alone.
I try to make this call honestly rather than out of habit or ego. Sticking with solo on a project that's outgrown it doesn't protect the work, it just makes the job harder and the results weaker than they'd be with the right support.
The Financial Case for Staying Lean
Keeping overhead low has always been part of how I've run this business, going back to years of living out of a car and a van early on, and that same instinct shapes how I think about solo work today. A project that doesn't need a team doesn't need a team's budget either, and I'd rather protect margin on a personal project than pad the crew out of habit.
This isn't about being cheap with collaborators, since I pay fairly whenever I do bring people on. It's about being honest with myself about which projects actually need that expense and which ones are better served, financially and creatively, by staying small. Self-initiated projects especially don't have a client's budget behind them, so keeping the footprint lean is often what makes them possible at all.
That discipline around cost is part of why I've been able to keep taking on personal projects year after year without them becoming a financial strain on the rest of the business.
What I Still Can't Do Alone
There are things solo work genuinely can't replace. A big commercial production with multiple looks in a single day needs more hands than mine, full stop. Certain safety-critical setups, particularly around water or exposed climbing, benefit from a second person watching angles and conditions I can't fully track while also operating a camera.
I've also learned that some of my best lifestyle imagery, the stuff that shows a brand's gear in genuine use and often carries more value than pure action shots, comes easier with a second person around to help direct a scene naturally while I focus on the camera. Trying to do both jobs alone flattens the result more often than not.
Recognizing these limits isn't a contradiction of everything else in this piece. It's the other half of the same judgment: knowing when solo is the right tool means also being honest about when it isn't.
Lessons From Leading Teams That Shape How I Work Solo
Leading teams, on sports and later on shoots, taught me to set a clear goal up front and then get out of the way unless something isn't working. Oddly, that same instinct shapes how I run solo projects: I set a clear intention for the day before I start, then stay flexible enough to let the day actually unfold instead of forcing it toward a plan that stopped fitting the moment conditions changed.
Solo work without any of that structure just becomes wandering, and wandering rarely produces a finished project. The discipline I built leading teams didn't disappear when there's no team to lead, it just gets pointed inward, toward managing my own time, energy, and attention the way I'd manage someone else's.
In a strange way, running solo projects has made me better at leading teams, and leading teams has made me better at running solo projects. The two skills feed each other more than I expected when I started doing both regularly.
What Van Life Taught Me About Working Alone
Living and working out of a van for stretches of time is, in its own way, a long-running solo project, and it's shaped how I think about solo photography work more than any single shoot has. There's nobody to split logistics with, nobody to remind you the light's about to change, nobody to double-check that you packed the right lens before you drove two hours to a trailhead.
That kind of solo living builds a specific kind of self-reliance that translates directly onto solo shoot days. You get comfortable making every call yourself, adjusting the plan when conditions shift, and not needing outside validation that a decision was the right one before you commit to it. Team projects don't require that same muscle nearly as often, since there's usually someone else to sanity-check a call with.
I don't think you need to live in a van to build that kind of self-reliance, but the overlap between how I've learned to travel alone and how I've learned to shoot alone is real, and it's part of why solo projects still feel natural to me rather than like a step backward from working with a full team.
Why Solo Projects Keep Me Sharp
Solo work forces a kind of resourcefulness that team projects can quietly erode. When there's no assistant to hand me a different lens or reposition a reflector, I have to solve problems myself, in real time, which keeps skills sharp that might otherwise get outsourced to whoever's helping on a given day.
It also keeps me honest about what I actually know versus what I've been relying on other people to handle. Every solo project is a small audit of my own capability, in a way team projects, even ones I'm directing closely, don't quite replicate.
That's a big part of why I keep choosing to do some projects completely alone, even now, with a decade of experience and a network of collaborators I trust. The solo work isn't a leftover habit from earlier in my career. It's a deliberate choice I keep making because of what it still gives back.
Reflection Questions
- Which of your current projects would actually benefit from staying solo, even if your instinct is to bring in help?
- Have you ever brought someone onto a project too early and watched it lose the ambiguity that made it interesting?
- What terrain or setting in your own work genuinely gets safer with fewer people involved, not more?
- Where's the line for you between a personal project that should stay lean and one that's actually outgrown solo?
If you're weighing when to bring in help versus keeping a project to yourself, the Adventure Photographer's Playbook covers how I structure both team and solo projects from pre-production through delivery.
Dalton Johnson is a professional adventure and editorial photographer with over a decade of experience creating images on all seven continents. His client work includes Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, Big Agnes, Ford Bronco, and 160+ other brands. He runs Dalton Johnson Media as a full-service studio, from pre-production through post and distribution.