Grand Canyon                                                            click to enlarge

There is lots of conversation in the photo world about when is the best time to take pictures. Some folks are fanatics about only shooting in the magic hours around sunrise and sunset. They make up rules and write articles about how you can’t take pictures any other time because the light has to be just perfect and that only happens during that narrow time period when most people are still asleep or eating dinner.

I take a lot of my images during the magic hours myself, but if you only shoot then that leaves an awfully large part of the day left where you’re pretty unproductive, and being one who occasionally chooses to not follow the rules I’ve discovered that you can shoot pictures any time you want to. I paid a lot of money for this camera and it needs to have its shutter clicking on a regular basis to justify that expenditure. Granted if you’re not careful and hide behind a bush while you’re doing it the photo police will come and arrest you for unauthorized mid-day shooting, but I’m willing to take that chance.

This shot of the Grand Canyon was taken at high noon, a time when every good, rule following  photographer should be having lunch, camera placed well away from your grasp in case the uncontrollable urge to snap a picture over takes you. I chose to take this image directly in front of a large crowd of shooters ,their eyes wide and their mouths open in gasping disbelief, some even averting their eyes unable to believe what they were seeing, because I’ve discovered one of the great secrets of photo making. You can take pictures whenever you want to. That’s right, just hold your camera up to your face and press the shutter. And if the Photo police approach you and begin their tirade, just calmly  look at them and say “Back Off tyrants or I’ll shoot you.” then hold your camera up to take their picture.

You’ll see them scurry back to the shadows, hands over their faces, terrified that you will steal their souls and they’ll be forever captured in the harsh light of the noon day sun. This is good because it leaves you plenty of room to walk around and shoot without stumbling over another photographer.

The idea of shooting only when the light is perfect came about because a long time ago when people wore watches and used pay phones, cameras weren’t adjustable. I know, weird right, but they didn’t have all the knobs and buttons and now menus on them that we have today. And film was expensive and the development of that film was even more expensive, so when your pictures came back and they were ugly you were discouraged. Then someone wrote an article about finding light at the bewitching hours at the front and end of the day and if you shot then you brought your percentage of keepable pictures way up. Many ugly pictures at an expensive rate of cost shooting during the day versus many more keepable pictures if you only shoot at the times you’re supposed to, voilà a rule is born.

But now cameras are magic. They can do anything. You want to stare into the sun and take its picture, you can do that. ( I don’t recommend that but you can if you’re dumb enough to try stuff you read about on the internet) If you want to sit up all night long in the freezing cold and take hundreds of pictures so you can make pictures of star trails you can do that too. You can even, Warning! Heresy alert !!!, take pictures during the day when the light isn’t perfect. Now remember, if this is new to you or you have a low risk type of personality, start very slow. Stick around 15 or 20 minutes after the morning golden hours are over and take a picture, just one, then look at it later in the day when your heart has stopped racing and see how it turned out.

Some of you will be taking shots at high noon before you can blink your eyes a hundred times. For those of you that can’t tolerate high rates of stress in your lives, it’s okay, don’t even try this. Remember there is no crying in photography and also remember there isn’t much bad in photography. And most importantly we won’t judge you. Well some of us might but so what. The worst that can happen is you’ll get to use your delete button. Happy shooting.