Missed shots

This morning on the way to work, the sky was just clearing from a light shower from last night and fingers of sunlight streamed down through the clouds to touch the ground.
As I drove on a freeway overpass, I could where occasionally one of the fingers of light would land directly on a car below looking as if the cars were being selectively 'beamed up" to the clouds via light waves. The rapture. Aliens. Whatever....

The point is, I was driving and was not able to stop and take out my camera to compose a shot that would have expressed the vision I was seeing as I drove to work.
Missed shot.
Now, I will be on the lookout specifically for another representative of that vision, hopefully with time and camera in hand. That missed shot becomes inspiration for more of the same.

Describe a shot that you've missed due to no time, no camera, objects in the way, etc., that becomes inspiration driving you to your next conscious photo shoot. Perhaps your vision will inspire the rest of us.

The best shots are the missed ones and also on the film before the film was developed.

I guess I don't spend too much time fixating on a missed shot. If I see something photogenic and don't have a piece of equipment (or the right one) with me, then so be it--I am content to have seen it and move on, as the world is full of more opportunities, and I don't beat myself up for missing one. Trying to recreate it is a somewhat futile effort...if it's a fleeting scene, it won't be the same the next time around, when it isn't fresh.

I remember a shot that I saw enroute to Lubbock TX with my wife for ride while I was going to school in eastern New Mexico. Along the a county road a notice three dead coyotes hanging on the a barbed wire fence dead right next to each other, positioned the same way from cattle farmer. Even tho it was grotesque it was beautiful at the same time. The sky had those perfect dramatic open plains clouds with deep blue background. I didn't have my camera. It would been awesome shot with Medium format Black and white.

Todd

i was driving en route, in traffic so i couldn't stop ...
an old building that i kept telling myself i needed to photograph
in the streetscape before it was gone was being razed ...i rubbernecked like everyone infront and behind
as a backhoe with a "thumb" nudged the building a few times, and bit off pieces of it ...
the next time i drove by, it was cleared ground. a few weeks ago driving by
the local standpipe i pass about 4 times a week ... it was being torn down.
20 people stood on the sidewalk as someone in a bucket cut some of the rivits and it just collapsed like an erector set toy 2 seconds later ...
would have been nice to photograph it falling like the handfulls of other buildings i have photographed
in various states of demolition. once stuff is gone, no one has any memory of it being there ...

Plus 1 with hamradio except.... A few years ago we were in Yellowstone National Park I was photographing a great scene and thought I had done all I could with it. A minute after I packed up my camera and folded my tripod a flock of ducks or geese in perfect "V" formation flew over into the exact right spot of what was my composition. If I would have been just a little slower! Missed it and have never printed those negatives since the flyover changed my perspective on those negatives.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

There is a big refinery/ industrial plant of some sort on the side of the freeway on my way home from work. Occasionally, they light the gas discharge on fire to burn off gases of some sort and a single big torch burns 50 feet into the air. One night on my way home I drove by and every single smoke stack was ablaze, fifty of them, all shooting flames into the night sky. Totally surreal, apocalyptic. It was AMAZING. I drive past there several times a week around the same time, and every time I round the corner I cross my fingers and hope that it's happening again. I still kick myself for not pulling over right there in the freeway and at least getting some iPhone shots.


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evites said:

There is a big refinery/ industrial plant of some sort on the side of the freeway on my way home from work. Occasionally, they light the gas discharge on fire to burn off gases of some sort and a single big torch burns 50 feet into the air. One night on my way home I drove by and every single smoke stack was ablaze, fifty of them, all shooting flames into the night sky. Totally surreal, apocalyptic. It was AMAZING. I drive past there several times a week around the same time, and every time I round the corner I cross my fingers and hope that it's happening again. I still kick myself for not pulling over right there in the freeway and at least getting some iPhone shots.


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WOW! That would be an awesome sight.

I have seen many shots missed when walking about without a camera, but in a car no. You can't appreciate any image when driving, because when you stop and step out the car you are never in quite the right place. At least, that's my take on it.