My Favorite Joke

I have told you all my favorite joke?  Well, this was my favorite joke when I was much younger, so it's pretty tame.

First the set up - you get the person to ask you what you do for a living and then what the hardest part of it is.

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a stand up comedian."

"What's the hard-"

"TIMING!"

Okay, so that joke was pretty good when I was in the fifth grade, but I doubt it will bring down the house now.  Still, I think about the principle of it a lot.  Timing is hard - and it's especially important in my chosen profession of photography.  There are so many times when I've lamented shutter rebound or that I didn't already have my camera out.

But the payoff is the other side of the street.  I get great images and not all of them come from careful set up and prep.  Sometimes it's just the someone is smiling sweetly without noticing the grin spreading across their face, or the wind calms down just enough to make the branches stop swaying for a moment, or a particularly good patch of light shines right down on my subject.

On my last vacation, I woke up my husband after I'd been out for an hour shooting away, because I didn't want him to miss all of that magnificent mist rising off of Lake George after heavy rains the day before.  He was a little grumpy with me at first, but we were standing over the railing looking at the dissipating tendrils of fog over the lake and he looked over at me and said "I'm glad you woke me up."

I love what I do, and timing is everything.