Agony of Defeat

[Derf]

The best part of Photography is showing off our success.



This is not that kind of thread. In this thread I want to talk about the one that got away!!!!

My "Agony of Defeat" was also the same time that I got one of my best photos I had ever took. June 21st 2008 I was leaving work in Jericho N.Y. when to the west I had seen a flash. I pulled out my phone and looked at the doppler radar and found there was a cell about 10 miles away heading to the east towards me. I realized that it would be over me in about 10 minutes or so. I was thinking to myself that I needed a good spot with a good opening and it hit me like a ton a bricks..."foreground clutter!" thinking what what is the area I remembered by beloved Felix and opened my car up toward the old Grumman Facility in Bethpage. I was doing probably about 75MPH on 106 heading south as not one person was on the road as it was almost 1AM as I locked the wheels more than a few times as I approached street lights and then blew them at 15mph or so after being able to verify the all clear!. I arrived and setup my tripid as this monster cell was approaching. Once setup the rain started and it was BIG DROPS! The rain was flying almost sideways as the bolts approached quickly. Got setup so the aircraft was underexposed as I realized the flash of lighting would add a stop or so and I did not want to overexpose. I started a routine that I continued for some time.

1. Wipe the lens
2. Set lens to autofocus
3. Focus
4. Set lens to manual focus
5. open the shutter in manual mode for 8 seconds
6. Open my shirt wide to cover the camera to keep it from getting wet in the FURIOUS DRIVING RAINSTORM that was like being in my shower!
7. Repeat 40 times

As I watched lightning getting closer and closer and bigger and bigger, my butt was getting wetter and wetter but I did not stop. I took my "Famous" Felix shot and a few seconds later a massive bolt lit up the sky and hit a block away! I though I had that shot but missed it and took this shot shortly after as the wind blew my shirt in the shot and ruined what would be my most powerful image of the night.



That is my Agony of Defeat.... I would love to hear more stories of the fish that got away.... What cha got?

[mirrodie]

That's easy.

It was almost a year past 9-11 and we were landing at LGA when the plane swooped back up and did a go around. We heading to the GWB, then traveled the length of Manhattan above the Hudson to get back into the landing queue. While flying back, we were at a relatively low height above the Hudson. I realized this would be my first time seeing 9-11.

Used my last film camera, but between my ****ting planning and slow film speed, instead of catching the WTC footprints all lit up at night, from the air, I got 2 white blcokish blobs...

I think though it was apropos. It was image forever engrained in my cortex that film could never grasp.

[Matt Molnar]

I spent over an hour train+cabbing to HPN to cover the NBAA Northeast Forum a few weeks ago.

I'm not that into bizjets, but Embraer brought up just about their entire lineup, including one of my favorites that I've never seen in person (only a few have been delivered), the Lineage 1000, aka the VIP version of the E190.

I got on board this beautiful jet, whipped out my camera, tweaked all my settings for indoor shots and began snapping away.

Looked down to check my results...

NO CF CARD

It was a longer ride home.