The one that got away....

I've been having alot of these lately; fish (spring salmon that I swear was

<i>this</i> close), girls (hah), and great photograph opportunities... <p>

 

 

I was photographing a landscape today, shot my 12th of 12 frames and turned

around. I saw some perky ears about 50 feet uphill away and it's a mule ( i

think ) doe standing in the tall grass looking at me. Theres another doe about

10 feet behind it, looking at what the first doe is doing. The setting sun has

just poked out of the heavy rainclouds it was covered by all day, the sky is

full of dark textured rainclouds and the this all makes amazing backlight on

the two deer and for one of the rare times I see a perfect shot framed right

in front of me. I slowly wind the last of the film and open my bag to get

another roll. The deer moves along and then stops when it hears me crinkling

the foil wrapper. It starts moving again above the lump of the hill and then

stops when it hears me winding the new roll onto the back. By now the second

doe is out of sight. The first starts moving out of sight and away from the

perfect composition and I get one shot that I shouldn't have even taken, of it

turning around and running in the direction it came. I ended up hiking farther

up the hill and over the crest and one of the does had stopped about 300 feet

away just before the forest entrance and was staring at me. We watched

eachother for a bit and then it moved into the forest. All I got out of that

was one frame I don't even wanna see and a scratch on the head navigating

through some barbed wire. I can't stop thinking about it, and at first I was

sure it was going to torment me for the rest of my life, but now I feel like

its inspired me to go out and see more amazing scenes like that. I wish I

could convey how perfect it looked with a photograph but my description is

going to have to do...

Oh yeah, there was that time I was on a little boat with a tiny electric motor and me and a few friends came upon a buck and a doe entirely accidentally. I shot some photos of them with a flash. Checked the counter later and it turned out I had somehow managed to hit the film rewind button while the camera was still in my bag and I was exposing those great shots onto my pressure plate. I've dredged up some real messups!

I think of all the amazing shots I saw before I was into photography in a serious way....I do have the memories of course, but I'd like to have the photos too!

I call it "Roller Skating Penguin Syndrome".

 

You can guarantee when your film/battery/memory card runs out, or you've just packed your gear away, the most amazing shot will appear in front of you (though I admit I've never actually seen roller skating penguins!).

 

I suppose you just have to be happy with the picture in your own memory, and thankful that you saw the scene at all. It is bloody annoying though!

Not nature but The Goodyear blimp made an emergency landing in my back yard years ago. No film in camera... enough said....

After lugging 2 Pelican cases full of gear and 2 tripods onto the houseboat, (at Lake Powell), getting 15 miles uplake, I discover, "NO FILM"! (of course no digital either....)

 

It was however, a very relaxing trip--not having to worry about taking ANY pictures whatsoever....

I watched a wolf swim after an injured elk in a small lake, tiring her out, while a sleepy trumpeter swan dodged the pair and a rutting bull with enormous antlers came to check out the commotion. Of course, it was night, and the moonlight was only enough to allow me to watch with the biggest, heaviest pair of binoculars you ever seen, and I was alone. Left before the kill. There's something to be said for being able to share those moments. I guess that's what cameras are for. Given we're able to use them when the moment comes!

I went out on Safari and found that I had left my camera back in my hotel in Nairobi.

i left our hunt camp once for about 200 yards before realizing i forgot my gun.

I was photographing orchids near Ely Minnesota, so I had Velvia in my camera set at ASA 40. We were moving to another location when I suddenly saw a wolf less than 50 feet away moving TOWARD me and my wife. It closed to within 15 feet of us before it moved off. It was early in the morning and I didn't have the good sense to change my film speed so all I got was a lovely brown blur. But I will forever have that image set in my grey matter; too bad I can't hook my brain up to a printer.

Bighorn sheep in a little parking pulloff in Glacier NP, no more than 30' away, I had three cameras on the seat beside me and grabbed the one that had mirror lockup/timer set for sunset shots

 

That boy had horns that curved around into a full circle, then about 25% more, was licking some gum or something, gave me just enough time to prove I was an idiot, then jumped the wall and was gone into the dusk

1) On my way to Yosemite I managed to leave about $300 worth of Velvia in an elevator at the San Francisco airport. I was just a *little* angry at myself.

 

2) Hiked up a very long, difficult trail to shoot a sunset with my then, newly acquired 1Ds II. Got to the top and it was incredible. I then discovered I'd left my (only) battery charging on the charger at home.

 

In the inimitable words of Homer Simpson... D'oh!!

2004...shooting NCAA basketball at the Dean Dome UNC Chapel Hill UNC ranked #8 vs. UConn ranked #1 battery was so low I think I got 10 shots and spare was dead...hard lesson

Been chasing Great Blue Herons on and on for years. Have lots of tail feather views.

So this year I decided was the year. A great very large male and two teens hunt regularly along the river near the bike path I use. Took Hassey 350mm & teleconverter on my back on 37 ocassions - nothing. On the thirty eighth there he was, saw me instantly, waited, posed. I assembled the camera, took a few meter readings, set the camera, crept thruogh the brush , got him in my viewfinder. I'm just about to clikck when, lights flashing, breaks squealing, along comes a government truck; out jumps two non-photogenic characters who proceed to run down the bank hooting and hollering to get a water sample to test to see if the swimmers down river are safe.

THE HERON - he left the province and has only been seen once when I was out on a "no sense bringing the camera equipment" bike ride; but, that's another story ...

One of our local technical colleges runs a short course on "Watercolour Painting for Travellers", with the catchline "Are you always disappointed with your holiday snaps...?"

 

Could be the answer to these sorts of problems!

Last week I was watching a heron off of 17 mile drive in Monterey, CA. Though my lens was a bit short for the task, the foreground was a nice array of yellow flowers, and the background was the shoreline of the pacific. I momentarily switched to manual focus to eliminate some problems I was having with foreground grass. After a 30 second break of watching him, he speared his break down to earth and came up with a gopher and started shaking it violently. I started firing off frames, rather amazed as I didn't know heron's were such hunters, just trying to focus on the composition. By the time I noticed my camera wasn't adjusting focus, the gopher was down the gullet. Made me give a lot more weight to the suggestion of taking AF-On off the shutter button so I wouldn't have had to switch to manual focus in the first place.

 

The next day I proceeded to carefully wedge myself into a kayak with several $thousands of camera gear, shove off and start framing pictures of sea otters before realing I had no CF card. Back to the dock, back to the car, back (carefully) into the kayak... fortunately the sea otters were very patient.