Serendipity

This is one of my top three favourite shots of all time…

The story behind this image

As a wildlife photographer I miss many shots. A LOT, most of them in fact. Either I’m looking the wrong way, or I have dialled in the wrong settings on the camera or I have allowed my focus to drift or I’m just too slow.

This is par for the course and I accept it. It’s to be expected and it makes the successes all the more sweet. Sometimes you miss a shot and you realise it’s a behaviour you maybe noticed before and now you realise it’s a habit and that’s a good thing. The longer you spend with your subject the better you get to know them, their habits, their quick movements that will make for a cracking shot and the circumstances under which that behaviour is likely to be repeated. You might miss it this time and maybe a few more times but soon you will recognise the triggers and the next time you’ll be primed and ready and your chance of success will rise with every new day.

There are however some shots that are once in a lifetime and when they happen and you miss them that hurts, but you must accept the missed opportunities and just move on. But then there’s the flip side. If you get out there often enough then of course the coin flips the other way and you will sometimes (very rarely) catch the once in a lifetime shot because you’re in position, your camera is perfectly set up for the situation, you’re alert and primed and you hit that shutter at exactly the right moment.

This is such a photo, a once in a lifetime, never to be repeated photo - let me try to explain why.

I was standing right across from the tree - if I’d been slightly to the left or right the camera, heron and tree would not have lined up and the shot would not have worked. The feathered edges of the leaves mirror perfectly the shape of the wings. The shape of the wings is majestic in that precises micro second when I clicked. The green hues top and bottom frame the action beautifully and draw your eyes in to the contrasting tones of the bird, perfectly standing out against the dark background. And as if that wasn’t enough, the arms of the tree connect everything into the top of the heron’s head, only from my vantage point.

A perfect shot. But I’m not taking credit for creating it. It’s perfect because the stars aligned and I was lucky but they do say the harder you try the luckier you get. My many missed shots had trained my hand and my eye to react without thinking, so as soon as I sensed the movement, before I even knew what was happening I had turned my lens to it and started firing.

I could stand in this spot for 100 years and this moment would never be repeated.