Spark of the Moment

"Do Not Put Off For Tomorrow What You Can Do Today."

Opportunities don't always come knocking at your door twice. Neither do ideas. In life, not just in photography, I've learned that when such moments come, opportunity or idea, you have to seize it, right there . . . right then. If not, it will just pass by, and most likely, you'll never get a second chance. If you can't, then of course, don't kill yourself over it. But if you can, like Nike says, "Just do it." Don't postpone. What is possible today may no longer be possible tomorrow.

Many of the photos I took that I hold dear in my heart, and photoshoots that were most memorable were like that - conceptualized and done during the spark of the moment. Countless times, I have stopped driving on the side road, just to take a picture of a beautiful sunset (or sunrise). Or have gone to a site, even when it's raining. All because an idea or an opportunity to take pictures was there - and I only need to seize the moment.

The photos featured in this article are the results of a recent impromptu photoshoot - spark of the moment. A blue hour shot of mine of the Al Bidda Tower, was liked by a friend who had this idea of having herself in that picture. She asked me, thru online chat, whether she'll need to hold her pose for the duration of the exposure if she's going to do that shot(if 10 seconds is the shutter speed, then she'll have to stay still for 10 seconds). So I said, "Yeah, that's what you need to do, but we can always test if that theory is accurate." It turned out that we were both available at that time so further chatting led to a very quick planning and 3 hours later, we were doing this photoshoot at that same site as the picture she liked. We just went ahead and did it.

What worked for me just fine is that she's an experienced model so I left the concept, outfit, makeup and poses up to her. All I had to worry about is my camera and lighting setup . . . and then just wait for cars to pass by. And we did it - her idea translated into actual pictures on the same day.

No, I did not asked her to hold her pose for 10 seconds - there's no way we're gonna pull that off. I kept the shutter speed to a more workable 2 seconds - short enough to keep her images sharp but long enough to create beautiful light streaks. Of course, you have to compensate the faster shutter speed with a wider aperture and higher ISO settings to get the exposure right.

Cheers,
alexdpx