Now here's a word I'm not very good with. I'm not a patient person. I've always been amazed at photographers who can wait hours for just the right moment. For me, five minutes is a long time. And that's why every now and then I force myself to stop, stay in one place, and see what comes my way.

It's a good exercise to put yourself through, especially if you have a short attention span like me. I often say that one reason I thrived as a newspaper photographer was because of that short attention span. If an assignment lasted more than fifteen minutes I'd start getting antsy. But now and then I try to force myself to stay in one place and see what happens.

I recently wrote about a short trip I took to the Adirondacks while in upstate New York. After nearly an hour running around the town of Old Forge shooting pictures, the sun was setting and I was losing the light. There's a bridge leading into town from the south, that crosses a small river connecting to a lake. I figured it would be a good place to watch sunset, and a nice spot to finish the evening. So I parked the car, walked out on the bridge, and waited to see what would happen.

Being lucky doesn't hurt. Right away two kayakers came paddling through. Nothing happened after that, so I climbed down to the water's edge and shot some of the grasses growing there backlit by the sun. Then I played with the water and patterns and reflections, changing white balance on the camera to get different color looks. After that I saw some movement at an edge and realized some ducks were headed across the water. Another person came walking along the bridge, and I saw they were looking behind me. Turns out there were a few deer working their way down the edge of the river. By then two guys in a canoe came paddling up from the other side, and I shot them wide passing under me, then tighter silhouetted against the water. And as the sun dropped below the horizon, there was a nice opportunity to shoot the scene wide, again trying different white balances (the Fluorescent setting is one of my favorites for this).

Now I'll be the first to admit I got lucky, But part of that has to do with the time and place. When you do this you want to find a spot that you think will be productive. I'd rather not try this in the middle of an open field at noon. Not that you couldn't make pictures then, but you'd have to work a lot harder. And in addition to a short attention span, I tend to be lazy. Pick a pretty spot where you think there will be activity, time it for morning or evening light, park yourself and say alert. You may be surprised at what happens. I sure was.