How often do we feel prepared for what’s next? Sometimes we can see it coming, and sometimes it just slaps us upside the head with surprise. We’d been taking sunset shots at Arches National Park on a beautiful spring evening and, stomachs rumbling, were headed back down toward Moab for dinner. However, of course as photographers we know great light doesn’t pre-announce its arrival, and you’re either prepared for it or you’re not. 

In this case, with the red rocks and pine trees in the foreground and snow-tipped La Sal mountains in the background, I knew stopping down on the camera’s aperture was a necessity for all-around focus, here around f/13. With waning light, this would usually be combined with a tripod. However, we could see the sun literally winking out over the western horizon. And the tripod was buried under other gear. 

Our wedding photography days prepped us for quick thinking on our feet though, even though this included an element of luck this evening. I framed the shot at 75mm and even with image stabilization and an ISO of 800, knew 1/15 of a second hand-held was unlikely to be sharp. 

Except…

One trick when low light’s not your friend is to take several frames in a row, preferably on continuous drive so your finger is pressed down only once and all you have to do is very slowly exhale throughout. It’s likely one of the frames will be sharp. Or at least sharp enough. So with the frames captured best we could, we stood and watched with gratitude as the last of the day’s light paint the clouds orange and red.

Our take-away that evening? Our circumstances may not always seem perfect to our eyes, but they can often be good enough to still make it work. 

What are you making work today, in your less-than-ideal circumstances?

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