Did you get it? Did you see that double rainbow? Did you get that great shot? How many shots of the grizzly bear did you get? Can we leave now? No. No. No. No. No. I haven’t gotten every shot I wanted or clicked the shutter on what others were seeing. Nature is a great teacher and I am its student. There are many lessons to learn from successes as well as failures.

Images not captured on film are disappointing but also have been my greatest teacher; I have run out of film during a breathtaking experience; I have had a dead battery at the wrong time; I have failed to reload film fast enough; and I have not always been ready or perceptive. There have been times when I simply did not have a camera with me when I should have.

For example, I have had two great opportunities to photograph whales and missed both times. The first time I was in a catamaran on the Atlantic Ocean twenty–five miles from Bar Harbor, Maine, on a whale–watching trip. My first experience let alone the first time to ever see whales other than in a picture or movie. I can still see the imagea full–framed, sun backlit, a whale tail waving at me as I saw it through my lens. I pressed the shutter, but the shutter did not, and would not click. A flashing battery warning appeared on my control panel. My camera battery was dead! As I hurried to replace the battery three dolphins jumped over the front hull of the catamaran. This was a double–miss, one being the vivid tail before my camera’s eyes and the other being the airborne dolphins fewer than fifteen feet away in a full, unobstructed view.

The other time I "missed" a whale photo opportunity, I was sitting on a picnic table on a beach after returning from a whale–watching trip off the coast of Maui. This was a case of not expecting the unexpected. After all, I had paid to see whales earlier that same day, and yet, right there in front of me fewer than thirty yards from the shoreline, two whales breached in front of me, again, then again, five times in total. I ran to my car to grab my camera. The whales did a complete flip for meas if to say good–bye, as I was running back to the beach to capture the moment, which I missed altogether.

I have experienced nature with a mix of excitement, exploration, discovery and challenge. The natural world is full of marvel and surprise that maybe revealed to the patient observer. I have been a patient observer. I have also been a distracted observer. On one occasion I waited for over three hours to see an eagle take flight. Someone came by and asked me what kind of camera I hadat the same time the eagle took flight in my direction not more than twenty–five feet over my head. While responding to his question, I "missed" the shot. Another lesson learned! Nature is always renewing itself. I have learned there will be many more gifts presented for me to capture on film. Memories of missed opportunities have been a valuable lesson for me to broaden my vision of nature photography. There is no one best shot. Missed pictures have been like a shot in the arm, learning from lessons from the past and exposing me to opportunities that wait in the future. I don’t want my images to be a mere copy of nature, but a unique and distinctive brush stroke of my experience.