Always ready

In photography, things happen fast. Moments are fleeting. Opportunities vanish quickly. Life has many similarities. As photographers, regardless of what you shoot, we need to be ready. So what can we do to up the chances that we will be ready? To improve our ability to take advantage of these opportunities?

There are a lot of things that we as photographers can do to increase our chances of capturing fleeting moments. We have all seen amazing photos of things that happened in the blink of an eye. Were they luck? Well, maybe the photographer was lucky that he was there at that moment, but all these images have 1 thing in common. The photographer had a camera. It was on. It was ready. So was the photographer.

So step 1 is to always have your camera. Step 2 is to keep it in a mode that allows you to shoot in an instant. Many of us use manual mode some of the time. A few of us swear that if your not in manual, you aren't really a photographer. I call bullshit. There are no mulligans or do-overs in fleeting moments. If you are just walking around with your camera, or it is sitting by your side in your car, or anytime you put it away, leave it in Aperature Priority mode, or in full automatic. That way if you wander upon an amazing situation, you can pull your camera out and start shooting quickly. The camera will do most of the work for you to properly expose the scene as it unfolds. Don't store your camera away with a specialty lens on it, like a 10mm fisheye, or a 180mm macro. Store it with a normal zoom on it.

Now that is not to say that you should always shoot in Auto mode. Not hardly. This is just for when you need to get a shot quickly. The next helpful hint is to anticipate the action. Know what is coming next. Are you a wedding shooter? Then you should know when the 1st kiss is coming, or the tossing of the bouquet. A sports shooter? You should be able to be prepared and always anticipate the long throw downfield, or the popfly to center. Landscape photographer? Golden light doesn't happen at noon. So as you are anticipating these moments, your camera should be set appropriately to get those shots.

The next helpful tip is to know your equipment, and what things you will need to get the job done. Can you change memory cards and batteries in the dark? Do you know how to change your ISO or shutterspeed quickly? How about your focus point as you change orientation from landscape to portrait? If you are a sports shooter, high frame rates are important. If you shoot weddings, high ISO, low noise are important. What about gear? I'm often asked if someone could shoot a wedding with an 18-200 f3.5-5.6 lens and 1 16 gb memory card. Technically? Sure you could, but not my wedding. The right equipment, anticipating the action, and knowing your gear, will help you get the shot, and improve your success rate.

The next hint is to pay attention. This goes hand in hand with anticipation. Yes, you know the first kiss is coming, but did you also see the father of the bride shedding a tear in the front row? Life is still going on outside the viewfinder, and if you are so focused on that narrow field of vision, you may miss many other amazing opportunities.

This post includes a series of images of my daughter having a butterfly land on her. We were not there to shoot butterflies landing on my daughter, I was actually there to work on some other ideas using my wife as a model. I was practicing some other things, with NON-PAYING family members, so that I could be prepared when a client wanting something similar calls. Another post for those images and about practicing on what you have available will come soon.

Anyway, I had my camera out, and was preparing to do something else when my daughter called out to tell me about the butterfly. This series just fell into my lap because I was prepared. I haven't done any Photoshop at all except to resize them for the web. But I can't tell you how amazed and happy I was as I was reviewing the images, and I could watch her expression change from one of focus, and willing that butterfly to land on her, to shear delight when it did. The rest of the stuff I shot that day? Not nearly as important to me as this series, and it was completely unexpected.

The smile in that last image just warms my heart. Will you be ready when a beautiful butterfly lands on your finger?

Coming up this week at Tri:

On Monday night we will be catching up on the calendar and talking about marketing.

On Tuesday night in Lighting on Location, we will be shooting, and have several models coming in. Bring your camera, flash, and stands if you have them.

On Wednesday night, we will be discussing Wedding album design.

Get out and shoot. Be prepared for something amazing to happen.

Frank