Ship of Fools: That perfect missed photo opportunity...

Thread: That perfect missed photo opportunity... Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

We've all been there. What was that perfect photo you would have taken, but didn't because you didn't have a camera at the time/the battery went flat/the lens cap was still on/etc?

Mine would have been during one lunch break when I went for a walk. It was a short route I knew extremely well and while I normally have a camera with me, this was the one day I didn't because I knew there'd be nothing photogenic along the way.

As I walked along there was a rustle in the bushes, and to my complete amazement a small female deer broke cover and walked along the path beside me. We stopped at the end and looked at each other for a minute before she ran off, quite unafraid. It had felt magical, in 9 years of going along that path I'd never seen any deer on it before, and it was the one day I had nothing to capture that special moment with.

Posted by Galilit (# 16470) on :

I saw a whole lot of fish standing on their tails and kind of walking. It was in a pool on a fish farm and they were carp.
Like the one of St Anthony preaching to the fish!

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Riga - a big monument guarded by soldiers - a downpour of the heaviest rain i have ever seen - soldiers did a funny march and lots of saluting and then legged it back to their barracks.

Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on :

Following a rain storm one spring, the cat was chasing a butterfly across the yard. The cat took a leap and a swing at the butterfly, missed the butterfly but hit a near by up turned lily which was full of water. Water dumped on cat. Oh how I wish I could have had a video of that.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

I was walking through an outdoor sculpture park in Seattle and came on a large stainless steel sculpture with a lot of beams going in various directions.

In the middle of it, a spider had woven a large web from the beams. It was dotted with raindrops from the light sprinkle. The light was such that you could see all the threads of the web.

Posted by ArachnidinElmet (# 17346) on :

Not long since a lorry parked outside my house. The driver had disappeared off to do something, and in the driver's seat, facing front, was an alsatian looking for all the world like he was going to check the mirror and drive away. Sadly by the time I'd got my camera, the driver was back (unless he was a were-alsatian and it was the driver all along [Paranoid]

). Foiled again.

Posted by Lord Jestocost (# 12909) on :

I was waiting at platform 2 of Didcot Parkway. On the far side of the station a goods train was trundling slowly through. The front end stopped. The back end kept going. It was the slowest train crash ever. Very slowly, the end of one truck pushed the end of another up into the air. The train finally stopped moving with those two trucks propping one another precariously up, right in front of a sign saying "Welcome to Didcot Railway Centre".

Posted by daisydaisy (# 12167) on :

One evening on t'allotment with perfectly angled light on perfect apple blossom.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

These are exactly the moments I try to capture is short pieces of poems that I call glimpses. No need for a camera just to look, see and recall. Such as:

Seen
A black silk knotted hanky
lies in the gutter
beside a yellow paved road
forgotten

Jengie

Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :

Dan Gurney driving a green sports car at Riverside, California in a race when I was eight.

Posted by Higgs Bosun (# 16582) on :

Driving across Twickenham Bridge one summer evening. It was raining over Richmond Hill, the low sun was exactly in the right direction to give a rainbow framing Richmond, its famous hill and the river Thames below.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

Big fireball over Mozambique one day, lasting for seconds.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Coming down Elhi Hill near home, the sky was hung with black clouds. The sun was out behind the trees to one side, but I couldn't see it from where I was. I'm coming down the hill, and the hillside is dark, but the high-tension power lines high above are catching the coppery sun, striping the hillside with thin lines of fire.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

The coyote who appeared within feet of our Jeep one summer afternoon on M-22 in northern Michigan as we started home after a vacation,and who just stood there for a moment watching us. I could have reached out and touched its head; it made eye contact with me.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

A male and a female lion fighting over a piece of antilope.

Camera batteries empty [brick wall]

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

A winter sunset over the Forth with a sea mist rising. The strands of the road bridge and the interlacing of the rail crossing hanging in an expanse of incandescent rose.

Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on :

Two:

One I actually took but it was film camera, and the film wasn't advancing, so it didn't come out. There's an abandoned photo kiosk in Pacifica that, despite many years of disuse, the strip-mall owners won't take down. It collects a certain amount of commentary and speculation. (it's a TARDIS, I know, duh.) Anyway, it was a creepily misty day, the fog very thin but also overcast, so I got (or thought I got) a very clear picture of the humble brown kiosk with a sinister mid-day sun hovering over it that was so fog- filtered it looked like a very bright moon. It was perfect. Or would have been.

Two; I was solo-vacationing in Petaluma, and one night while walking back to my car I passed the Oddfellows building. A full moon hung over it, and on top of the building, spotlit, was an arched panel with a pyramid/ eye motif. Neph is scarily into Illuminati stuff, which I tut him about, but I decided to indulge him and got out my phone to take a picture. Battery dead.

Posted by Mamacita (# 3659) on :

I was walking in Muir Woods north of San Francisco late one afternoon, when I saw a few people crouched down near a creek. One of them beckoned to me while using the universal "Sshhh!" gesture. When I got closer I saw a mama deer and a fawn drinking from the creek. We were so close. For the life of me, I don't remember what the problem with my camera was, but I desperately wanted to take a picture and couldn't. I think it might have been out of film and the mechanical noises would have startled the deer if I tried to fuss with it.

[ 10. June 2013, 23:33: Message edited by: Mamacita ]

Posted by comet (# 10353) on :

so so many!

two come to mind right off the bat. Once, when I was in college and living in a tiny cabin in the woods, I noticed my bedroom suddenly got dark (this was June, so no darkness) I looked up to see a giant moose ass pressed up against the glass as if he were mooning me. or resting his butt for a few minutes. too dark to get a photo, though.

When I was about 6 or 7, my mom and I were sailing in Prince William Sound for a week or so away from the world. We had a good clip going one afternoon and were racing down a strait - I thought we were going so fast as to be flying! Mom then pointed behind us to this GIANT dorsal fin catching up to us fast. This massive orca, with the dorsal all bent over from size, just ambled up to us as if we were dead in the water. It came up to the side of our (22 foot!) boat, and took a good long look. if I hadn't been absolutely paralyzed, I could have reached out and touched his eyeball.

it was a big damn eyeball. He(?) was huge compared to our little boat. after probably a few seconds at the most (seemed like an age) he took off ahead and left us in the dust.

would have been one hell of a shot. I think both of us were just busy feeling very very small and fragile and the camera option never even occurred.

Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on :

On holiday in Germany a few years ago. Two German police officers in full uniform, guns etc, riding very solemnly down the main shopping street on segways.

The moment the baby lemurs in one of the animal parks on the Isle of Wight jumped all over lemur-obsessed KGlet2's pushchair, the camera battery died.

Last week, KGlet1 lying under a tree in the sunshine, just being.

Posted by jedijudy (# 333) on :

I was on a sightseeing boat in Alaska a few years ago taking pictures. I had a strong urge to change the batteries, but didn't. Just then, a humpback whale leaped straight up out of the water within a few feet of where I was standing. The batteries, of course, died right then.

Posted by Haydee (# 14734) on :

On holiday on the French/Swiss border July 2005. I switched on the TV mid-morning to get the weather forecast to plan a hike. They were talking about reports coming in of a 'power surge' knocking out the London Tube. Over the next couple of hours it became apparent the power surge was a number of bombs.

In the end, as there was nothing I could do I stomped up a mini-mountain.

It was either very misty or lots of very low cloud - I could only see about 20 metres ahead. Then, out of the mist a mountain goat with curly horns came into sight standing on a rock jutting out on my right, in full traditional 'mountain goat on a mountain in the mist' pose. He stood there for a few minutes - but no camera...

Posted by Barnabas Aus (# 15869) on :

We were dining at a window table in our hotel restaurant in Prince Rupert BC a couple of weeks ago. A bald eagle suddenly soared past the window about three metres away. Both cameras were still in our room.

Posted by Meerkat (# 16117) on :

@ Haydee...

"Then, out of the mist a mountain goat with curly horns came into sight standing on a rock jutting out on my right, in full traditional 'mountain goat on a mountain in the mist' pose. He stood there for a few minutes - but no camera..."

Not surprised - I've never seen a goat with a camera! [Killing me]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Meerkat: Not surprised - I've never seen a goat with a camera!

I have, after it had stolen mine [Frown]

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