The Patient Instant: Anticipation, Presence, and the Moment That Reveals

Many believe they must be born with the talent of knowing just when to take that perfect shot. Well, talent can help, but I have said it many times before that one can acquire this gift by developing photographic skill. The Dean's sentence has stood over this course like a signpost, and in this final lesson the course owes you the practice behind it — because a gift that can be acquired can also be scheduled, and what cannot be scheduled is only the moment itself. The decisive moment, you now understand, is not an event in the world; it is a condition of the photographer. The world produces its coalescences continually, in every street and every station, with magnificent indifference to whether anyone is ready. The entire question is readiness — and readiness, unlike luck, submits to a calendar.