A picture I’ve been sitting on for two years now, this april 2008 was shot through the windshield of a plump if not quite over-ample stuck-in-morning-traffic 2008 Buick Lucerne at about 7:45am hst on the last morning I spent on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. It’s not an awesome photo (as few with Volvos in the foreground ever are), but the light, oh my goodness, the light.

The light that didn’t wait for fools like me, the time I got anywhere I could step out of the car was way past the apex of awesome, meaning I’d missed it by 15 minutes or more.

The camera body is somewhat important, and when shooting indoor sports, critically so, else buy any brand of DSLR, they’re all good. The lens, oh, the lens, so much more important, spend your research and your money here, make or break for many, most, photos. But the light, yes, the light; in the studio it takes years of practise to get it right even when always you have complete control. In the outside world the light is what makes or breaks almost every photo, and it changes every second. It makes one pause after shooting a photo like the one featured today, pondering “what if I were somewhere better exactly now?”

Hygienic store? This was the best I could do when the light was still almost 40% as good. I did my best, mostly to learn from the opportunity and not get stuck in traffic next time; note to self: get up 25 minutes earlier, always.