Shakera--missed opportunity

From taking this class I have learned that every day there has a moment worth capturing. I usually do not carry my camera everywhere with me and with my horrible blackberry camera it is hard to take a good picture of something I have seen. One opportunity in particular was when I was in the subway with my brother and there was a group of dancers down there performing. This is usually typical entertainment seen in the subways but something about this group of dancers really stood out to me. All the members in the group had a different style from one another but their love for dance was shown in their performance. Even though I could not stay long to watch the whole performance, I still remember everything about them so vividly as if I did take a photograph of them.
If I did have my camera with me I would have been able to capture the trick one of the female dancers did on her hands. The move is hard to describe with words because it was one of those moments you just had to be there to see. It amazed me how such talented people were dancing for money because it is hard to believe how they don’t have a job or if they do, they must not be satisfied with it. The crowd watching the performance would have been an interesting picture because all different types of people were observing them. The crowd demonstrated that entertainment can really bring all types of people together without being put into a category for that moment.

Missed Opportunities

The idea of a missed opportunity for a photograph is something I think about constantly. I’m the kind of person who feels the need to have my camera with me at all times because you never know if a moment will present itself which I see the need to visually capture it forever. Although I tend to bring my camera with me in most situations, there are times when I see an opportunity, but I chose to experience it without feeling the need to take a photo. Lately, with the end of this semester coming closer, I feel the need to document all of the moments I have left in my college life. Over the last four years, I’ve tried to capture all the moments, either by taking a photo or video because I don’t want to forget anything. I realize that this time of my life is so unique and once I graduate in May, my reality of life will change completely. When thinking about the end of being a college student, I reflect on certain missed opportunities I had during my time at Hofstra. I have a very personal connection to this school because I’ve made it my home away from home, having to plant my roots in New York more than others might have experienced. Before I graduate and I’m no longer a student at the school, I hope to photograph as much of the campus and life so I don’t look back on anything and think of it as a missed opportunity.

Missed Opportunities

Not a day goes by where I find myself missing the "perfect shot".  I refer to this instance as the "perfect shot" because it is a moment where the canvas is set and yet my brushes are not at the ready.

This particular instance where I did not have my camera, I was with a group of my friends. We had ventured into the city and went to Times Square.  On this particular night some construction work was being done to the backside of one of the worlds most prestiges street in the world.

It was the usual construction site, about a dozen guys congregated together and only three of them were actually engaged in work activity.  It was not the men working that was particularly interesting nor was it the fact that they were in the heart of the City.

What had really caught my eye was the make shift chimney that had created in order to strain the noodle like smoke from under the street.  That pipe was pumping out so much smoke from out the sewers that you would have thought they were holding a convention for cuban cigar smokers down there.

I would have really taken pleasure in capturing this smoke pillowing out from this pipe.  As it ascended higher into the sky it would pass bilboards that had a mixture of LED lights.  This would make the smoke take on different colors, it reminded me of a tank full of exotic multi colored snakes.

My description does not do this event justice.  Photography is by far my favorite way of depicting a certain event, emotion or action.  On that notion I try to keep my camera at the ready at all times.

Stephanie - Missed Opportunity

(Sorry this is late. I hope it is still acceptable)

It’s ironic that we would be discussing missed opportunities in photography because I feel like every year, every month, and sometimes every week I see this amazing moment and because I don’t have my camera I can’t capture it. It makes me want to just carry my camera around everywhere. After that idea crosses my mind I say, “Nah.”

Not too long ago my missed opportunity happened on my way to school one morning. It was a little after sunrise and I was driving on some road off of Post Avenue. It was in Westbury, NY and it wasn’t exactly the nicest area. I was at a stop light down the road from the United Artists Westbury Stadium Movie Theatre for what seemed to be a long time. As I was waiting I looked around and as I looked to my left there stood about thirty men in their work clothes. They looked dirty and ready for landscaping. They lined up, all of them, some in groups, some standing alone, either talking, smoking or just waiting. The sun peaked out the side of the building that the men were all standing against.

It was an awesome moment. I was so bummed I didn’t have my camera. If I was willing to be yelled at and chased off I would have just pulled over, jumped out and ran up to them to take their picture with my phone, but they didn’t look too inviting. I would have loved to do a project based off of blue collared jobs. People assume that just because people work in landscaping or even work as a garbage man that they are miserable and have a low end job and that’s just not true. My grandfather was a garbage man and he loved his job. He was a morning person and if his job meant his family could live in a nice house in a great neighborhood while his children go to a good school then he believed he was living the American dream. I don’t know exactly what those men in Westbury’s stories are, but I’m sure they have one.

A book of missed opportunities!

Daylight magazine has published an entire book about missed opportunities called Photographs not Taken.
Check out the audio excerpts, I'll try to figure out how to embed them below.

Kate Foy--missed opportunity

Most missed opportunities I typically try to push out of my mind because so I am not haunted my the memory. There have been many times during sporting events where I missed the right moment that would have made the shot. However, the most memorable missed opportunity for me was when I was in Ireland, my family and I were traveling around to different castles and old ruins, during a stop at a particular church we came upon a dog living in a crate, he was chained to a stone wall, and a knife casually sat on the ground next to him. the background behind the stone wall was of some very green irish hills. The contrast of the sad dog living in poor conditions was amazing. It was also raining at the time and the dog was looking right at me. I had my camera but could not adjust the settings correctly in time, i attempted to catch the moment out the car window as we drove away, but the moment was lost and the dog stopped making eye contact with me. Now I am much more skilled with my camera and will not have that problem in the future. I am also more careful to carry my camera on me when I am in interesting places.

Missed Opportunity

Like many others, I feel most comfortable photographing people or areas that I know well. I could photograph my family or my boyfriend in any situation and not really care if they don’t want to be photographed, or are irritated with me sticking a camera in their face, because I know them well. There have been so many times I have used public transportation and have caught someone in a moment and would have loved to have that image printed and remembered forever. Unfortunately I was too much of a coward to do so. I have been living in New York for three years with out a car, and have been traveling home to South Jersey for holidays and long weekends ever since I began attending Hofstra. I literally must have taken the LIRR into the city and the NJ Transit bus from port authority into Atlantic City over 100 times, and not once have I taken a single photograph on neither the bus nor the train. Looking back on it, this seriously is a disgrace. There have been so many sleepy passengers and so many screaming children and so many messy eaters that would have made AWESOME photos, and I totally missed out on it. I just recently purchased a car over the winter break and now I feel like those trips home on the bus will always be in the past, and I have nothing to remember them by.

Missed Opportunity

             My missed opportunity isn't so much of a missed shot but a missed idea. For "At Play" there were  a lot of ideas going through my head but they all seemed to be very safe and easy. I knew I wanted to do sports because I'm a big fan and love to shoot them in different ways. But nothing really stuck out to me except for the Quidditch team so I went with it. After I had all my film developed and most of my prints done I thought of a great idea that didn't occur to me earlier which was coaching.
            Athletes are great but what's an athlete without its coach. I know a distant friend who is older and coaches a fifth grade basketball team. He doesn't have a kid so he does it for the team and the school. I thought that it would be great to go to one of their practices and games and take shots of the coach to children relationship on the court. When your coaching/talking to younger kids you really need a certain way to communicate with them so you can get the proper response. They have to trust you. I thought it would be very interesting if i tried to show this idea through pictures.
          Unfortunately this idea didn't come to me sooner. If I was to approach this project again I would take pictures of the kids playing and the coach. I would document their relationship and try to show the story. It's something that I would definitively consider doing in the future. It would be a different approach of something I love to do. Although its an opportunity I missed it is still a possibility for the future.

Missed Opportunity

My missed opportunity is something that is a lot broader than just one particular event or project. I always seem to miss out on the human aspect in my projects. I just don’t like taking pictures with people in them and so I often have a problem where there is that connection missing in the series.

Anytime I ever incorporated people in my pictures they were very uncooperative or looked very posed. I would like to include more people in my pictures but I guess I just still have a negative connotation with it. I don’t mind taking pictures of strangers but I find that I get skittish once they begin to glare at me and I am more comfortable taking pictures of them when they don’t notice me.

I once did a project where I was taking pictures of people sleeping on the subway but I had to take them on my iPod touch and the pictures didn’t come out as well as they would have on my DSLR. I wished I had the guts to just take the heat for taking their picture.