Cut And Run?

it struck me listening to Sam Abell, how much he makes his own luck by being in the right place then waiting for the last element to 'make' the image. This raises the more general question of how long do you wait for the light to change, the wind to die or the right combination of circumstances to happen, before getting frustrated or simply making the decision to 'cut your losses' and move on.

I find it a common scenario in landscape work. Some of the elements of a good photograph are there but the lighting isn't quite right. It might be an hour or more for the right light, it might be never. In that time that I spend waiting, I could be looking around for a different, possibly better photograph.

So how do you decide when to 'cut and run'?

Sometimes it's obvious - there's not a cloud in the sky and the odds of the lighting softening in the next hour has to be considered pretty darn low - maybe better to come back a different day.

Other times the odds of things improving approach 50% and if the chance of the image being really good is high, if only the light were right, then waiting makes good sense.

Sometimes I'll wait 10 minutes and if nothing happens, break down the camera and pack up - and of course sometimes that's just when you get that momentary break in the clouds and the light pours in or whatever. Many's the time I have maddly set up again, sometimes catching the light, other times not being ready.

The other strategy is one of setting up the camera and leaving everything in position, but then wandering around looking for another possible image. Sometimes this persuades me to move the camera, other times I will mark the spot by dropping my viewing rectangle.

Mathematically, it's a matter of statistics - the chance of the right circumstances happening to 'finish' this photograph are X over Y time. The image I'm waiting for is Z quality, while the possibility of a better image found elsewhere instead of waiting here is Zprime.

Now if only I could feed these numbers into my pocket calculator and it would tell me to make or break.

For now, I keep guessing and usually getting it wrong and occasionally specacularly getting it right, which compensates for all the wrong times and keeps up my optimism, not to say delusions.