There is an old kids joke that goes something like. “Ask me what the key to comedy is…”
Then, before your victim finishes their question, you blurt out “timing!”
Timing is also important in photography. Not only “the decisive moment” to press the shutter, but also things like time of day, time of year, even time of week{{1}}. In other words, plan your outing. Decide what you want to shoot, then choose a location, and time. Ideally you will have scouted out the location (or at least visited it before) so you can anticipate where the light will come, where the best spots could be for certain shots, etc.
The photo on the right was taken at Goldstream Park on a Friday morning. I got there fairly early, because I knew that the sun would come through the trees and create interesting contrasts and shadows. I also know that wildlife is active first thing in the morning and quieter during the day.
As I was walking along the path, I noticed bees starting to visit the various flowers. Of course I stopped, put my macro lens on, and tried my luck. I wanted to blur the background so I chose a fairly wide aperture (f5 – This gave me a shutter speed of 1/250 at ISO 100). I also turned off autofocus, because I knew the bees would be moving too fast for reliable lock. I prefocused on the flower, then fine tuned and shot when I saw a bee. Needless to say I took a lot of duds (even this one is slightly out of focus) but I am pretty happy with how this turned out.
Timing….
[[1]]there are fewer people wandering around a park during the week to get in your way if you want to take flower or landscape shots. but there are more people wandering around a park during the weekend if you want to take people photographs.[[1]]
