Are You Ready?

I had a 35mm point-and-shoot dangling from my wrist when I saw this couple approaching from the opposite direction. I stopped in mid-stride, raised the camera to my eye, and released the shutter. Total time elapsed: two seconds. Was I "just lucky?" Sure, but as always, luck favors the prepared.

If I were asked to boil the essence of candid photography down to One Thing, it would be this:  Be ready. Be ready to snap a picture in a fraction of a section. Have your camera turned on and in-hand, not just dangling from a shoulder strap. Have your exposure and focus pre-set, so that all you have to do to take a picture is raise the camera to your eye and press the shutter button. If you're using a zoom lens, have the focal length pre-set as well. Go for speed over accuracy: There's little value in a perfectly exposed, perfectly sharp picture of the-moment-after-something-amazing-happened.

Needless to say, this takes practice. It also takes a willingness to try and fail; but if you fail, so what? If you're shooting digital a bad image costs you nothing. You delete it and move on. The important thing to remember is that unless you risk failure, there's little chance of success. See. Frame. Shoot. If you're ready, it should be just as quick and simple as that.