[magkelly]

I'm actually going to take that picture later this month. I'm taking a working holiday out to San Francisco from the 22nd to the 26th. I'm helping one of my teachers out on an archival project and in return I'm getting a nice place to stay, free airfare, and maybe a tutoring session or two during my stay.

The one place I really wanted to go when I was out on the West Coast was Land's End in CA. I'd seen wonderful pictures online of a labyrinth on a cliff there and I really wanted to go and see it for myself. I always regretted not making the time to do it while I was out there going to school and now I will finally get to do that, I hope. I'm supposed to have "some" time to play tourist anyway. Along with Land's End I hope to also spend a few hours in Japantown and in the Lower Haight, two areas I never got to spend much time in when I was out there and of course I'll probably do a quickie casual seafood dinner at the Warf because tourist trap that it is I still love it out there because it's on the water.

Here's a website on Land's End with some gorgeous pics...

laberinthos

[seacapt]

It's kinda funny, I tended to have a camera around for most of my life. I've seen some reall cool things and photographed alot of em.

The shots I didn't get: A Florida panther walking across a country road , an alligator taking a deer from the bank of a canal that we were fishing , a shark bigger than the boat I was in , a few of the bands that I worked security/door for back in the day and a former Miss Finland up close and personal.
The shots I wish I had gotten: more of my kids.
The one shot I'd take if I could go back: My Grandfather helping me work on my first boat when I was a kid.

[chromo]

The one photo I missed cos I didn't have my camera with me.
I know most won't believe me on this one but I'm gonna tell it anyway. I've not told too many about this for that reason.

In the mid '70s two of my friends and I went on a shooting trip. Hunting, that is.
We decided to try somewhere different to the places we would usually go, so we headed to a little town called Nundle NSW.

While driving on one of the dirt back roads near the town, and half way around a corner, suddenly a Thylacine came through the scrub onto the road.
It stopped in the middle and I stopped too. It was only about 15 meters in front of the car and just stood there sideways to us but staring at us. This thing was bigger than a german shepherd. It's tail is about 4 foot long and like a kangaroo's tail .
I opened the door and stood up. It was in our view for a good 20 seconds. Then about the time I said something like "I've got the wrong thing to shoot with, shoulda brought my camera", it trotted across the road and into a field of long grass.
We could still see it moving through the grass until it got a couple of hundred metres away.

These images are all so vivid in my mind but I can't remember which road it was and neither can my mates. Iv'e often thought of going there again just to find the spot but it's too big a task.

If you don't know what a Thylacine is, google it, they have supposedly been extinct for a very long time.

I certainly wished I'd had my Bella Belora with me at that time.

Chromo

[Ratmagiclady]

Ooh, a thylacine. I believe it, though. I do think there's some still walking around out there. Or at least were as of a few years ago.



Still, I never kick myself over missed wildlife shots, unless it's on one of those rare occasions I actually have a fairly appropriate lens mounted. (I usually don't.)

I've had occasional chances where it's like, 'Oh, this is beautiful... Long lens is right there... need... more... hands...'

Especially since right now my good long lens for the old Canons is big&heavy at least for me. Bigbig. Non-trivial to carry all day. Thus if it's *right there* and you dont get to bring it to bear... Heheh. A little frustrating. But hard to be too annoyed just cause you saw something beautiful.

[straightshooter]

If the photos had to be within my lifetime, I would take pictures of my grandfather. He was my absolute hero, a man who would ignore the pain in his legs (I now know) to get down on the ground to shoot marbles with me and was a magnificent story teller who never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn. I was devastated at age 13 when he passed away. That was 48 years ago and I still miss him.

Now if the photo could be anyplace and anytime, along with the pics of my grandfather, I would love to photograph the Parthenon by moonlight back when it was in it's glory.

CW

[johnmflores]

I jumped to digital too early, in the mid/late 90s with the Sony Mavica. The Pentax MX and ME sat in the bag for months at a time while I took awful shots with a succession of slightly less awful than the Mavica digital cam - Kodak D260, Canon G2. I finally sprung for a Nikon D70 in 2004, but there's a 7 or 8 year period of awful low resolution, crappy color, shot of family, friends, and adventures on multiple continents.

Oh, the foolish belief in technology...

[jogiba]

I wish I took more photos of Dale Earnhardt before he died in that last lap crash at the 2001 Daytona 500.

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Last edited by jogiba; 03-06-2011 at 02:29 PM.

[rocksaw]

Kayaking the New River in West Virginia-

I'd probably need some sort of water housing, but man - that was a great combination of actions shots (friends falling out of the kayaks!) and beautiful scenery.

Alas..I'll just have to back.

Patrick

[jimH]

I hate to state the obvious but, 40 years from now, what are the photos you will think that you should have taken? Let's look around at what won't be here (beside us) in 40 years and let's go out and record them. Posterity will thank us. Oh, by the way, identify what it is you are photographing so posterity will know what it is. It's funny, but history doesn't look like history to people who are living it.

[straightshooter]

I hate to state the obvious but, 40 years from now, what are the photos you will think that you should have taken? Let's look around at what won't be here (beside us) in 40 years and let's go out and record them. Posterity will thank us.

Great point Jim. A cousin of mine recently put together a book on the history of Upson County, Georgia and many of the photos of old houses long since gone were taken by a teenager who bought a camera in the 1950's, then went around the county taking photographs. Fortunately he recorded what each photo was and 50 years later, his collection provided at least a third of the photos in the book.

CW

[jimH]

Great point Jim. A cousin of mine recently put together a book on the history of Upson County, Georgia and many of the photos of old houses long since gone were taken by a teenager who bought a camera in the 1950's, then went around the county taking photographs. Fortunately he recorded what each photo was and 50 years later, his collection provided at least a third of the photos in the book.

CW

My thoughts, exactly. I've looked at old photos of my town and thought, "I wish I knew what those photos depicted to the person who took them, 50 or 75 years ago. They knew what the event or scene was when they took the picture, so why didn't they tell me what it was.

We look at things that we think are every-day scenes and think of them as ordinary, yet to generations yet unknown, they will be mysteries. I think we tend to try to depict things in our photography, that we think are unusual or especially beautiful, and ignore the things that really need to be recorded for future generations.

[Sailor]

My answer perhaps will seem heretical on a camera forum, but could I go back in time, there a so many occasions that I would have left my camera at home or in the car trunk and "enjoyed the moment." For example, JIMBO's recently-posted photos of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado reminded me of our visit there in the early '80's when I was consumed with photography. Rather than really share the time with my 5-year-old daughter and enjoying her wonder first hand, I was changing film, changing lenses, swapping bodies and fiddling with filters. I got some great (to me) photos, but none are worth what I missed in memories.

Of course, this was my doing (my cameras didn't force me to drag them around endlessly), and the convenience of digital photography allows us (and I finally learned) to more easily subordinate shooting photos to things that may be more important.

Jer

[jimH]

My answer perhaps will seem heretical on a camera forum, but could I go back in time, there a so many occasions that I would have left my camera at home or in the car trunk and "enjoyed the moment." For example, JIMBO's recently-posted photos of the Garden of the Gods in Colorado reminded me of our visit there in the early '80's when I was consumed with photography. Rather than really share the time with my 5-year-old daughter and enjoying her wonder first hand, I was changing film, changing lenses, swapping bodies and fiddling with filters. I got some great (to me) photos, but none are worth what I missed in memories.

Of course, this was my doing (my cameras didn't force me to drag them around endlessly), and the convenience of digital photography allows us (and I finally learned) to more easily subordinate shooting photos to things that may be more important.

Jer

Good point Sailor, I'm sure that we all have done the same.

[krp]

There was a shot I almost got last year, that would have made the news. There was a big fireball at night around 10:30 seen by many people over several states. There were only 2 videos from security cameras and no pictures. I had been taking lots of pictures of startrails that month, and I even took some the night before. If I had decided to take pictures that night, I would have pointed the camera north and had it taking pictures at 10:30. I almost certainly would have captured the meteor and have the only picture of it.

[jonhock]

Last fall a Black Bear ran through our back yard, around our house, and over to the corn field a couple streets over. I got really excited and just started running because I had my camera in my hand (we were going to our grandaughters basketball game).
I chased the Bear all the way to the cornfield even though when I tried to shoot I remembered that the battery was plugged in to the charger! Yeah, that's the one I'd go back for.