The One that never was

[John Kasaian]

Victor Korchenko's 1st Principle is: "Avoid taking pictures if you can." That works for me---at a couple of bucks a shot, I won't expose an 8x10 sheet of film unless the scene begs to be photographed.

But what about a scene that demands to be photographed but there isn't a camera available? The image gets burned into the imagination and while I don't have a print or negative it still causes me recollect.

Years ago---15 or 20 at least---I was flying a Piper Cub across central Nevada (now if you've ever driven this area you'll wonder what I could find thats so photogenic I still get flashbacks.)

I was flying during the middle of the day. Nevada has several mountain ranges that run North to South and I was flying between two of them, Northbound. Desert, mountains, middle of the day & light aircraft---it should have been a very turbulent ride but in the middle of the valley the air was smooth and I was about the same elevation as the peaks. Each peak had a towering cumulus directly above it, easily as high again as the mountains below. and the sensation was like being inside a vast collonade, perhaps 18,000 feet high and 500 miles long. The mountains were gold and the clouds a brilliant white. The rest of the sky a bright blue. Of course I didn't have a camera with me but was it ever a sight to behold--and "it" went on for a couple of hours at least (I had to continue straight ahead or turn back, attempting to cross the mountains on either side with towering cumulous would be just that--an attempt!:eek: ) Anyway, its an image that I often recall and I wish I had a photograph of.

So what wonderful photos that never were have you not taken?

[Ralph Barker]

Sounds like a lovely flight, John. Too bad you didn't have a dash cam. ;)

Personally, I "avoided" taking a self-portrait with a 43# rainbow trout I caught with a fly rig once. ;)

[Terence McDonagh]

Sort of opposite reasoning, but I was one West St on September 11th. I had just returned from a friend's wedding in California and gotten in very late. I didn't unpack any of my camera gear. It was one of the very few days in 11 years in NYC that I didn't have a camera with me. As horrible as it was, I wish I had one more photograph of the towers.

As it was, I happend to develop my favorite negative of the towers that following Friday when I couldn't get back into the city. It was a Konica IR shot from Jersey City, taken in May of 2001. Black water, black sky, white clouds and white towers.

[Brian Ellis]

I know the feeling, I have several like that. But then I tell myself the photograph might not have been as good as I thought or maybe I would have messed it up somehow. John Sexton has a saying that's worth keeping in mind - "Better to have a good memory than a bad photograph."

[Brian C. Miller]

One evening when I was walking home from the grocery store, I saw the moon behind a triangular stack of clouds, like a pagoda. Incredible, and completely unphotographable.

[Bill_1856]

"Not everything that is visually beautiful or interesting can be successfully photographed, especially with a stills camera."

[roteague]

Sometimes, you have to photograph with your eyes only.

[Vaughn]

I occasionally think of the photos I did not take while hitch-hiking thru New Zealand for 3 months (1981/82) with a 4x5...a 4x5 with a serious light leak where the metal of the back connected to the wood. I took those pictures -- but yet I did not.

The pictures I did not take while happily fogging film instead, influenced the course of my life. I spent the next four years slowly earning enough money to return to NZ. After each season working as a Forest Service mule packer/trail builder, I would buy what I needed. First year a lighter and better 4x5 (and a few years to practise with it), the next year a bicycle to ride instead of hitch-hiking, the next year the ticket good for a 6 month trip, and then the final year the spending money for the trip.

The woman I was living with and I broke up (she was not going to wait around for 6 months -- I had met her on that first NZ trip). After a month on the bike, I wised up -- I called her and she flew down 4 months later and we got married in her hometown in Australia (I got the trip and the gal!)

The photos I had not taken on that first photo trip made it possible to take the photos on the second trip, with a better sensibility of the NZ light and landscape. I had spent a year (1975) in NZ as an exchange university student before I became a photographer -- and the photographs I did not even think about taking on that trip helped to take the photographs during that last and very successful final trip.

Maybe this was a little different than what you had in mind, but I will say this...

I photograph as a way to learn to See. And over the years, I have found the photographs that I have taken with my mind's eye are just as important to me as the ones I have on film -- they are just a little harder to share.

Vaughn

[Dick Hilker]

As a compromise, I usually carry a 35mm camera on my belt to catch those shots that I'd otherwise miss with my Wista. Some of those "quickies" have been among my most successful pictures!

[Eric James]

But what about a scene that demands to be photographed but there isn't a camera available? The image gets burned into the imagination and while I don't have a print or negative it still causes me recollect.

A variation on the theme: the camera was ready, but I lacked motivation. Having just exposed a film or two, I was driving home (with hundreds of miles to go) when I saw a beautiful landscape, in excellent light, during mild conditions. In the moment, I was packed up and heading home - this was my mind set. I rolled past the scene with the devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other: I should stop, I should roll; it's beautiful, I just hit the road. The devil won, and I kept on rolling. I regretted my decision more and more with each passing mile. Now, 5 months later and 450 miles south, I hate myself for that satiated, welter-weight decision. An 1/8th of a second of light missed for the sake of pulling into the driveway 15 minute sooner.