I have to disagree at some point because when you always try to plan everything you can literally kill the spontaneity and sometimes when you shoot
spontaneously you can do really cool stuff. In my opinion the creativity doesn't come when you sit and think about it. It's like BOOM and you got this, you know what to do. One single idea.
But on the other hand I agree with you that having a concept is necessary to tell a clear story. Not good, but clear to understand. Why did I said "not good?" Because every story can be good depending on how you explain it to your audience so that's why you need a good concept of it, so people can understand it without a problem. Same with colours, lighting etc. it increase fullness of your story when everything match together.
and one simple question- why the smoke isn't shaped into unicorn?! :D
RE: How to take awesome self portraits and win some SBD