The Pressure of Impatience

There is one simple killer for anyone who believes they wish to take photographs, the difference between a wonderful image, and a snapshot: Impatience. In a world where everything is done quickly, from fast food to internet connections, Patience is far more than simply a virtue, it is one of the lost virtues no longer practiced. We need to hurry from one place to another, always one step ahead of time, always experiencing the best of life as quickly as possible, so that we do not miss the next experience. With so many short films on various social media web sites, it is important that we weigh our own lives in the same measure, and do all the things, as a single person, that a crowd of individuals, Influencers, are doing all over the civilised world. Too many of us measure ourselves by them, and try to keep apace, to our own detriment.

We can all be lucky and catch an image at just the right moment, in the right light, at the right angle, once or twice. I dread to think how many shots need to be taken for that to happen, and certainly in the era of film photography, it would have sounded the death knell for anyone with a moderate pocketbook. Today we can point and shoot, and shoot, and shoot, and then sort things out later. One of them, we know, is bound to meet our expectations. There are, though, some things which need a little time, which need patience, which cannot simply be caught at the right moment exactly when we happen to be there. My header photograph to this piece is one such example.

It is, to all intents and purposes, a fairly normal image: a piece of working equipment parked on a stretch of grass between two roads. You can probably find similar scenes in most major cities these days, as one after another road is repaired or improved. This image, though, was not taken in one day. On the first day that I went out specifically to capture it, well aware that the machine would be put to use in a few day’s time and no longer in such an ideal position, I was disappointed. All the necessary attributes were there: the subject matter had not moved; the light was right; I was prepared. I was, however, not the only one there. This, up until the start of this week when the road was ripped up, is a very busy road junction. Buses and trams drive along here, there are countless pedestrians and bicyclists. To my left and across the road behind then excavator there are bus stops, to my right the two lane traffic narrows into a single lane. Buses and trams run every ten minutes, the rush of other traffic is constant. From the housing estate far in the background is an almost constant flow of human beings going about their business. They walk along the pathway, they stop at the junction, they hurry across when the lights are green, they wait at the bus and tram stops. My ideal, what I had planned for this image, was to have the viewer, should there eventually be one, concentrate on the main subject piece, the centre of attraction, with no disturbances to left, right or behind. Had I been impatient, I would not have managed to achieve what I wished to achieve.

And so, as the traffic lights changed, as the traffic flowed, as buses stopped and started, as cyclists wheeled by, I waited. Passersby looked at me, and wandered on. A bus stopped just in case I wish to embark on a journey. Traffic headed into and out of town flowed, stopped, flowed again. And always, for nearly an hour, there was something there which I didn’t want to be there. The light faded, the moment passed, my time was up and I left unfulfilled.

With a stationary object, one which isn’t hurrying by to some important appointment, there is always a second chance, if we wish to take it. Second chances, though, can be limited. For this shot it was the knowledge that work would begin, the excavator would be surrounded by other work tools and barricades, would be moved to a new position. I returned the next day, Easter Sunday. The trams and buses still drove, there were cars and vans, pedestrians and cyclists, but few and far between. I could work on my desired image without the background noise, the disturbances, patiently. Admittedly I have the time, to devote to such projects, many do not, but I also have that one virtue too many have lost, that of patience. And, I believe, an excellent result as reward for my patience, my tenacity.