Lightning Never Strikes Twice

In photography, and even more so in photojournalism, there is rarely a second chance at a photo. This is especially true when working with people in candid situations. Emotion that can be compelling and real at one moment becomes contrived and forced the next.

But as any landscape photographer can tell you, the same can be equally true when chasing the fading light of sunset over El Capitan at Yosemite. Mix both human activity and the fleeting nature of the weather and it's possible that something photographed today may never happen again.

Riding back on board a Coast Guard Auxiliary vessel from covering Coast Guard training off the academy waterfront, I spied, at some distance, the familiar red hull of the Hel Cat II moving into New London Harbor. With a bit of a squint I was able to discern the cloud of gulls surrounding the boat. The distance from where we were, just off State Pier, to where the Hel Cat was, just off Eastern Point, is easily two miles. That is a very long throw when all I had was a 300mm lens, but the way the light was casting across the boat, the gulls, the lighthouse and the water was compelling to my eye and I composed and shot a series of frames before the fish cleaning in progress must have ended and the cloud of gulls dwindled.

Back at the office the shot looked great on my computer screen, but in the end, as can be common in journalism, lost out to many more compelling images from that day's news coverage. And in newspapers, if a photo is not fresh, not taken that day, it quickly loses value. By the next day it may still have been a nice photo, but it was no longer newsworthy enough for publication.

I made at least two more attempts to try for at least a similar moment (after all, the boat returns about the same time every day) but the light was never the same, the point of view from shore lacks the clean composition, and the gulls were not as numerous.

So now the photo simply becomes a chance for me to write about the capricious nature of trying to capture one singular moment, whether it be human emotion or natural landscape. Maybe someday I'll find myself on the Thames again around the same time and get another chance, or maybe the light and everything else will never be just right ever again.