Lost Opportunities

guangong · Mar 5, 2018

By lost opportunities I don’t mean lost pictures because the scene was too fleeting and camera not ready. Instead, what I have in mind are scenes that you pass by very frequently, sometimes every day, that have already been viewed in the mind as having the potential for a great photograph but somehow never got around to actually photographing. Sometimes for years. And then construction work or some other changes destroy your vision. For example, for years I passed an old graveyard with an ancient iron arch entrance located behind a weathered silo...the death of agriculture. Great composition. Then, the silo converted into a garish commercial billboard for local business and foreground now neatly manicured. Original picture gone!
How many of us have taken a scene for granted because of procrastination and then it is no more?

BrianShaw · Mar 5, 2018

I have.

Vaughn · Mar 5, 2018

Of course...but I have also managed to get images right before they disappeared.

But most of my images are of the light I find on the landscape -- not so much of specific places/time.

Ko.Fe. · Mar 5, 2018

Where I live, GTA, cityscapes and landscapes are getting constantly destroyed. High-rise buildings and cookie-cutters, whats all. Entire old neighborhoods and farms, fields are destroyed and something ugly and not transit friendly is build instead. They destroying many trees, some are older than official age of Canuckistan is. Just because where is no planning, environmental control. Profit and taxes rules.

Like this tree. Those are destroyed all time.

And this is what they put instead:

Theo Sulphate · Mar 5, 2018

It has happened to me once: I photographed a colorful art-deco building with my phone, a place I saw weekly for years, with the intent of coming back the next week for a film photo. That next week, the building was half-demolished. So I have only the phone photo.

guangong · Mar 5, 2018

Ko.Fe. said:
Where I live, GTA, cityscapes and landscapes are getting constantly destroyed. High-rise buildings and cookie-cutters, whats all. Entire old neighborhoods and farms, fields are destroyed and something ugly and not transit friendly is build instead. They destroying many trees, some are older than official age of Canuckistan is. Just because where is no planning, environmental control. Profit and taxes rules.

Be careful what you wish for. The city that I live in is very efficiently being ruined by city planners, who have devised the implementation of changes not derived from the real world. In order to fulfill their ideal every tree but one was chopped down on the main business street (wait till summer, when pedestrians must walk under burning sun), reduced parking on same street for cars and delivery vehicles in favor of bicycle lanes that are rarely used by cyclists. The list could go on.

Like this tree. Those are destroyed all time.

And this is what they put instead:

NedL · Mar 5, 2018

If I have thought about photographing something, whether a tree or a building or a view or just a cool looking thing, if I haven't done it, then the tree is guaranteed to fall down, the building will blow up, the view will have a giant condominium development appear overnight and the cool thing will disappear. I make a point of never thinking about photographing people or pets or anything else I might care about.... although, you know, wouldn't it be cool to have a photo of the POTUS?

mooseontheloose · Mar 6, 2018

Oh wow, too many times to count. Although in many cases it may not be something I was thinking about specifically at the time, but wish I had photographed more when I had the chance, like in Ko.Fe's example. I lived in Toronto in the late 90s (96-99) and returned again in 2005-6 and was shocked at how many changes had happened in the few years that I had been away, especially in the north (North York) where I went to school and worked. We used to be on the literal edge of the city but that's gone. I'm sure it's even worse now. At the time I didn't think about the neighbourhoods or the farmland just beyond, it was just there. But once I saw how much had changed I wished I had taken my camera out more to photograph what was around me. A similar place is Cambodia. The country I went to in 2001 has changed so dramatically over the past few years, that by the 3rd time I went in 2012 I almost didn't recognize the run-down, well-worn around the edges towns and cities I had first visited. I do have a few photos of my first visit there, but not enough to really capture what it had been really like compared to now.

GRHazelton · Mar 6, 2018

I drove past this fine old Victorian many times when it was the Shadowlawn Mortuary, and never got around to shooting it. It was well back from the road and a BW shot on a gloomy day with a wide angle to include the sign would have been...fun! Here's a link: https://vanishingsouthgeorgia.com/2010/05/29/james-coleman-house-1904-swainsboro/

jtk · Mar 6, 2018

Important topic.

Photographers may be more aware of passage of time and "loss" of evidence than most.

Wallendo · Mar 6, 2018

It has happened to me so many times I have lost count. Usually it is something I drive by all the time. I tell myself that I should stop and photograph what I see, but am usually too busy, or there is too much traffic, the dogs are with me in the car, or some other excuse and I never get around to it. There was an old motor hotel with stand alone units I found quite fascinating. I took a few quick shot which a FED3 I was playing with (which had registration issues), so I have a few poorly focused images. Before I could get back with a better camera, the units and been torn down and there was only a trailer park visible in the background.

Sirius Glass · Mar 6, 2018

We should pass laws requiring that photographs be taken and that nothing interesting be knocked down!

jtk · Mar 6, 2018

The most profound destruction of visual legacies, after warfare, is done by politicians and real estate developers....as we're seeing now in the US.

GRHazelton · Mar 7, 2018

jtk said:
The most profound destruction of visual legacies, after warfare, is done by politicians and real estate developers....as we're seeing now in the US.

We Americans visit Old World countries and return raving about the charming old buildings. Then here at home we proceed to tear down charming, historically significant buildings before they have a chance to become old. An emblematic case in point? Penn Central Station. See this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Station_(1910–1963)

DWThomas · Mar 7, 2018

Yup, it's happened. Back when -- maybe the 1970s -- I used to occasionally drive through an intersection on my way to work that on one corner had a "gas station" reminiscent of maybe the 1920s. One time I was looking for kerosene, and remembering a sign for such outside, I stopped in there. Inside was a full harness and tack shop with all sorts of leather harnesses and such hanging on the walls. My impression was the owner actually made the items. At the counter was an older woman in an older Mennonite garb that was no longer common. She was chatting -- in the "Pennsylvania Dutch" dialect -- with the proprietor who could easily have been pushing 90. For my kerosene he used one of those pumps where you turned a crank to fill a graduated glass cylinder to the desired quantity and drained it into the container. I exited feeling as though I had truly journeyed back in time. Not long after that, my next pass through that spot, the building was half demolished! In the rear part of it there had apparently been a sort of living quarters and many of the interior walls had been ripped out. In the remaining structure was still an intact set of stairs, and a bathroom with sink and toilet still in place. I had no camera, and had to get to work -- alas, by the end of the day, all was leveled. I stlll wish I'd done something -- also maybe gotten some pictures while the business was still functioning, perhaps a diptych or triptych of a small slice of history. Ah well!

Lost Opportunities

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