Catch it while you can

Catch it while you can

Transience is a regret for almost everyone, almost all the time. We long for this or that as it used to be… A lost amenity for me is a fire escape at a local studio – you used to be able to get in there, and switch off all the lights, using small flashes for spectacular shadows: these shots of Victoria Summers were lit with Chrism8’s excellent battery-powered flash, giving a more general illumination.

All lost now: the building managers have fitted a ‘break glass to exit in emergency’ lock. I treasure the images I have, though I regret not being able to go back again. Similarly, mistere has shot for the last time in a semi-derelict industrial building this week. Conversion to luxury flats begins this week.



But it doesn’t always work so dramatically. The stoptap cover that I used as an illustration a few days ago has been replaced, proving that the George Best Problem afflicts inanimate objects as well as people. The twig that you see lying photogenically across a plant will have blown away tomorrow, or this evening, so if it’s beautiful now, photograph it now.



The effect of directional light on textured surfaces is particularly transient. Look at my shadowed wall – five minutes earlier, it was in shade, and five minutes later, the effect would, largely, be gone.

‘Carpe diem’ got mainstream after Robin Williams quoted it in Dead Poets Society. But if you’re a photographer, ‘Seize the moment’ is a better maxim. So many things will have changed by the end of the day. Seconds count.