At This Moment
March 2009
There are days when I carry the camera around for hours and come back with nothing worth looking at. Then there are days when I sit down somewhere for twenty minutes and come back with five frames I can't stop thinking about. The difference is not the light, not the location, and not the gear. It is whether I managed to actually be present during those twenty minutes.
This frame came from one of those twenty-minute days. I had stopped trying to find something. The afternoon had turned grey and flat and I was about to pack up, and then the light shifted for about three minutes and the whole table was doing something I hadn't expected. I got the shot and walked home.
At this moment is the only useful instruction I know for photography. Not later, not once the light is better, not when I have the right lens. Right now, with what's here.