It has been at least 8 years since I last did a blog post and little did I know, it was seemingly random photo from a time-lapse sequence that convinced me I start or rather continue writing bits and pieces of my photographic journey.
This is the photo in question
…story so far
And this is the story behind it. I was in Sekinchan a couple of days ago looking to grab an interesting shot or two hopefully a nice sunrise, this is something I have done many times before.
I set up my A7C on my small Sirui tripod for its usual time-lapse duty and used the A7 IV for the more interesting shots.
Everything went like how it normally went but that day, weather wasn’t great for a nice sunrise as there wasn’t any mid-level clouds; in fact, there was so few clouds in the sky that I count how many there were in one hand.
I got barely anything great on my A7 IV but once I downloaded the photos, my favorite photos came from the time-lapse camera which I couldn’t move and have set to shoot a shoot every 5-seconds.
You might be thinking, “That is some luck you got there!!!”
That was what I thought initially too but soon realized, that wasn’t luck at all. This was what inspired or pushed me to write this post.
The Point is…
I got the photo because I came prepared, how? Let’s think about this, in order to get that shot, I had to :
- Know enough to set the camera correctly in time-lapse to get good exposures during sunrise when the light basically changes from available darkness to basically full day-time light
- Had to tools to find out where the sun is coming up and when
- Set the camera with a lens and angle that will result in at least a decent composition whatever happens during sunrise. And trust me, sunrise is as unpredictable as they come in terms of how the clouds moves or where the clouds will be.
The point I am trying to make is : “Opportunity (Luck) come to those who are prepared” and that applies to most genres of photography / videography (and probably many other fields).
Now, some of you might think, luck is important for event, wedding, wildlife photography. Yes, it is important but what is more important is how well-equipped we are to grab the opportunity or the decisive moment when it comes.
Anticipation
In fact, for those genres, it is even more important to be ready and anticipate what might happen as the great moment in those genres are often non-repeatable and will never happen again.
A split-second and the moment is gone. Stand a step too far to the right and you miss the shot. Take an extra 0.5s to twist your zoom ring and you miss it. That is why I love using prime lenses but that is a story for another day.
So let’s talk about anticipation a bit more… I first learnt formally about “Anticipation” years ago when my dad taught me how to play table tennis. He more or less said it is nearly impossible to play table tennis without learning to anticipate what your opponent will do since the game is so fast.
From my experience, anticipating what might happen next in photography requires observation, experience, presence of mind and ability & will to concentrate for as long as the shoot last.
Having sufficient experience will also help photographers to know or be able to adapt if things don’t happen as you anticipated them to happen.
For today, for now, for this post, I wish all my photographers, “Always be ready and be there” (instead of the old saying, “F8 and be there”)
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