Planning is an essential task in the work of a teacher. Very little research has been carried out on the way that student teachers understand this preparatory phase, nor on the way that professional competence for planning is developed. Our research aims to understand what student teachers do about planning at the point when their professors expect them to be able to put their knowledge into practice. Using a new system to record the traces of student teachers' planning activity based on photos taken by the 12 participants, this qualitative doctoral research highlights four distinct planning profiles.