Me everytime miss a chance to document a truly epic observation, like imagine when you are at home, at terrace(mostly my fun time on terrace) and then black headed ibis fly very low(so low that you can see his eyes) suddenly appear and then you ask permission to take phone from your mom to pass phone, so that you can click photo, then what In my case whenever such things happen, a mysterious force opposes me like friction opposes motion, then any unexpected thing can happen, like
your camera canāt focus
you forgot the momās phone lock so you are trying again and again
or simply your mom is not giving phone because she is talking to relative while I am freaking out urghhhhhhhhhhhh (eternal darkness and sadness come to me) so I cry.
But as a good and optimistic boy as I am supposed to be I go on my terrace everyday to take photo, and literally no living organism wanders around, if some butterfly comes by mistake, it will be common as flies, or if it will be a new organism it will never sit on anything. I am just asking how???
So I go on my terrace everyday, I still see black headed ibis flying on my head, but I have no camera so I just stare at bird, thinking in disappointment and asking myself why??, meanwhile the bird flies over my head meanwhile bird passes over my head very satisfied and joyous. and wonder what, you can see sun set and white clouds with hint of violet, isnāt it a perfect scene?
Iāve lost track of neat stuff I missed the shot on (usually me not noticing something until just too late). Itās frustrating every time, of course!
Thereās nothing really, seriously disappointing Iāve missed though, I donāt think. Some of those species I may never see again in my life anyway, but thatās just part of the hobby.
I eventually threw the print away, but for a while, I had a picture of my shipmate in the forest ā and at the edge of the frame, you could just see the foot of the gibbon that a second ago had leapt onto (and, obviously, off) my shipmateās back.
It wasnāt doing anything epic but was a rare speciesāa Wood Stork in Florida, but from a train window. No chance of getting a decent picture, I was lucky I even saw it well enough to ID it in the first place. Finally something that wasnāt just another ibisā¦and I couldnāt document it.
I was out photographing wasps with a DSLR (mostly to learn to use the camera!) and I saw a blue wasp! It went into a hole before I could get a photoā¦ Yesterday I saw it again but no cameraā¦
I saw an alexandrine parakeet fly past me this morning. I had left my phone in the car as I walked my little brother to school so all I could do was get the pencil and sheet
Yes, of course! The older I get, the quicker these happen!
The ones that bother me are from being so amazed I forgot I held a camera, or the ones because of a digital camera: I was Chimping Shots at that moment. Ugh.
(Chimping comes from looking through the photos just taken and exclaiming āooh ooh oohāsounding like a chimpanzee. Break this
Two occasions spring to mind. The first was when I spotted a snow leopard in northern Pakistan. By the time my mind registered what I was actually seeing and I fumbled through my pack to get my pocket camera it had calmly crested the ridge and disappeared.
The second was a small group of freshwater crabs in a crystal clear spring pool in an ancient fort on the top of a large hill in the middle of Afghanistan. Given the tenseness of the situation I figured it was unwise to whip out my camera. I still wonder how those crabs got there and what they were. The water of the spring dried up totally before it even got anywhere near the bottom of the hill.
I love it too, but please donāt do it!
When I started ( oh no, back in the day from the boomer warning) my favorite song was āSome Day My Prints Will Comeā. Chimping is a wonderful ability!
I usually post on Fieldguide to Everything and iNat. I havenāt thought of them as selfie culture social media. I only recently found this forum part of iNat and consider this social media, but do not post my photos here.
I have learned to take my (iPhone) camera with me, even to the mailbox and often think of it as a preventative to seeing something cool. But when I do at least Iām almost ready!
