Water, stopped

A fleeting moment in time
London, ON, July 2007 [Click to create a torrent]

Freezing water with a camera has become an occasionally recurring photographic theme for me (see here, here, here, here and here for previous examples.) On the surface, the results can be quite spectacular. But beyond the fast-shutter-speed gymnastics, there's the underlying feeling that I'm capturing the otherwise invisible, the imperceptibly real, and a moment that's gone long before I remove the camera from my eye.

When I take pictures like this, two things come to mind:

1. I hope I don't get the camera wet
2. I wonder how many other moments like this I've missed because I didn't take the time to record them

I used to kick myself for not being more prolific, for keeping the camera at home or in its bag when opportunity presented itself, for missing every spectacular, hidden moment around me. But that got old, and it started to take the fun out of the photographic game. These days, I'm more apt to choose my moments, to focus on those that I can capture and capture well, and not lament the ones that got away.

Once again, I find myself learning that these little lessons I learn as I peer through the lens seem to have a broader impact than just a picture. Who would have thought a mere camera could present such great opportunities to learn.

Your turn: What can a lens capture that the eye cannot?

About this image: Forgive my geekiness for a moment: I shot this at 1/4000 sec, f/8, 200mm focal length, ISO 800. Time of day was 6:11 p.m. and I was challenged by a sun that was moving between clear blue sky and clouds. I had taken our two youngest to the Gibbons Park splashpad and we were drying off and heading home. In the 90 minutes that we were there, I shot some 320 images - of them, of ducks, of water, of whatever. I used the long lens to meander around the edge of whatever it was they were doing and quietly record them. I'll post more images from our Sunday afternoon adventure in the days to come.