Pop quiz: You’re observing a once-in-a-lifetime event.  There is plenty of professional media around, and their photos will be readily available afterward. What do you do?

1. Take a photo
2. Enjoy the moment
3. Miss it because the jerk in front of you spilled his drink on your shirt

All too often, people choose the first option.  Instead of enjoying the moment, they make a misplaced effort to take a snapshot.

I noticed this while watching the Obama inauguration today.  Throngs of people, cell phones and compact cameras held high, looking at LCD screens instead of what was right in front of their eyes.  Did they really think that they could get better photos than the professional photojournalists who shot with superior vantage points, superior expertise, and superior equipment?  Why distract themselves just to make an inferior product?

Some events are meant to be enjoyed, and others are meant to be recorded.  Similarly, there are many beautiful things in this world, but not all of them work well in the photographic medium. I find that if I attempt to split my attention between photography and enjoyment, both suffer.

The Grand Canyon is well known as a subject for photographs.  However, the images I captured during my time there were halfhearted.  I made a few, sure, but I made a conscious decision to stow my camera for most of my hike.  I was more concerned about experiencing the canyon, hiking between the rim and the river.  It was beautiful.  Attempting to capture that beauty would have ruined it for me.

Yes, I acknowledge the value of pictures in jogging memories.  In certain social situations, where I am one of the participants and there is no press corps standing by, I will take snapshots of my friends and me.  Even then, I am careful not to let photography become the focus of the event.  But a fleeting moment that is better covered by others? No.

Knowing when not to take photos can be just as important as knowing when to snap the shutter.

Ah, the things we do for love.

My legs hurt.  It’s a good hurt.  It’s the kind of hurt that makes one feel like something has been accomplished.

The cause?  After a two-year sabatical, I have returned to something I love doing: I played ice hockey on Monday.

It was a low-pressure environment, just two hours of pick-up hockey at a rink in Cupertino, CA (better known as the location of Apple’s headquarters).  I was nervous: Would I remember how to skate?  Would I be able to stop any pucks?  Would I be horribly outclassed?  Fortunately, everything came back to me, and everybody was close enough in skill level to make it fun.  I met not with great embarrassment but with great fun.  I plan to play frequently in the future, and I don’t plan to give it up again so long as I am physically able. Thus, a truth:

I never should have stopped.

I love playing hockey.  I harbor no illusions about my skill level; I simply play because I enjoy it.  When I moved to California, I convinced myself that I would not have time for both hockey and grad school.  I believed that the rinks were all too far away, and surely I wouldn’t be welcomed if I went.  All of that seems ludicrous now.  I’m still kicking myself for quitting.

Here’s the upshot: Don’t stop doing what you love, and if you’re not already doing it, start.

Life is too short to make compromises.  We all grow older every day, and our windows of opportunity for doing what we love are small.  Why wait?

Ask any photographer, and he will be able to recount in detail the photos that he missed.

Such events evoke a feeling of helplessness.  Whether because of equipment failures, a lack of equipment, misdirected attention, or bad timing, the result is the same: an image lost to eternity.

I experience this phenomenon several times during each sporting event that I cover.  Maybe I screw up the focus on an otherwise amazing shot; perhaps I have my 400mm lens in my hands when a play happens three meters in front of me.  The most embarrassing misses occur when I’m chimping — browsing the photos I’ve already taken — instead of keeping the camera to my eye, looking for new subjects.

One of the moments that I particularly regret missing occured during Rose’s homecoming this past October.  I was standing in the crowd waiting for the traditional bonfire to be lit.  It was nighttime, and we were all in a large field.  It seemed like everybody wanted to record the moment, so there where hundreds of cell phones and digital cameras being held in the air, all pointed at the bonfire.

My attention wasn’t on the bonfire as the flames began to lick the wood.  No, I was awestruck by the sight of those hundreds of backlit LCDs glowing in the night in front of the newly-ignited pile of railroad ties.  I can still see the image in my mind’s eye.  It would have been an amazing photograph, but I missed it.  My camera was in the trunk of my car.

I had flown thousands of miles with thousands of dollars of camera gear, but it did me no good because I foolishly thought I wouldn’t need it that evening. I spent the rest of the weekend lugging my cameras with me, but I saw no other worthy images.

All photos are brief moments in time, fleetingly ephemeral.  Once the moment is gone, it will never come again. No amount of grousing will bring it back.  However, there are a number of things one can do to minimize the likelihood of a missed photo:

1. Carry a camera.  The best DSLR in the world does you no good if it’s not in your hands.  Carry a decent compact camera even if you’re not planning on doing any shooting.  You never know when an image will present itself.  Even cell phone cameras can do in a pinch: some guy took a photo of the US Airways jet in the Hudson with his iPhone, and it ended up on the front pages of many major newspapers.
2. Know your equipment. You don’t want to waste time screwing around with the exposure and focus.  Similarly, you don’t want to take the shot, think you have it in the can, and later disover that it’s three stops underexposed and blurry.
3. Don’t “chimp.”  And by that I mean don’t go browsing through the “amazing” photos you’ve just taken; you’re liable to miss the new action.  Pros who chimp get ridiculed by their peers, and rightly so.  As a corollary, most pros shooting sports don’t use the instant-review function on their cameras (the feature that automatically shows the just-acquired image on the LCD for a few seconds after the capture).
4. Always be looking.  Open your eyes.  Scan the area.  Move around.  Some of the best moments occur away from the supposed subject.
5. When in doubt, snap the shutter.  Digital memory is cheap, so when in doubt, shoot.

In short, follow the Scout motto: Be prepared.

“Do you want to buy some popcorn?”

I was coming out of Safeway when I was surrounded by a group of Boy Scouts in the midst of fundraising.  Clipboards in hand, they asked that question over and over.  I was a Scout, and I sold plenty of popcorn in my day, but I have yet to purchase Scout popcorn in my adult life.

It’s not that I don’t like popcorn; I’m munching on some right now thanks to an air popper from Craigslist ($4, and it was brand new!).  The problem is that “Do you want to buy _____ ?” is not a very good opening line, especially when I’ve just dropped a good amount of coin on food.  Clearly, the pitch needs improvement.

Consider starting: “Do you like popcorn?”

Most people like popcorn, so they will be inclined to answer “yes.”  It’s a strong hook.

For a follow-up question, perhaps: “Great! So do I!   [type of popcorn] is my favorite.  What’s yours?”

This provides affirmation to the customer and serves to build rapport.  It also encourages the customer to continue the conversation by sharing their favorite type of popcorn with the salesscout.  That information will be invaluable for the final part of the pitch:

“Well, you’re in luck: we have that right here! (points to popcorn matching stated preference)  This popcorn helps to fund our camping trips [or whatever].  How many boxes would you like?”

Here, the salesscout satisfies the customer’s preferences, allays any unstated concerns about the money, and — critically — asks for the sale.

Okay, maybe that seemed a bit stilted.  However, if I were the customer and pitched like that,  I’d probably be so impressed and surprised that I’d buy something regardless of my popcorn needs.

Unimpressed by their pitch, I didn’t buy any popcorn that day.  However, when a girl scout came to my door a few days ago and pitched me with a shy, “Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?”, I immediately signed up for a box.  Same pitch, different product, different outcome.

Maybe I’m just a sucker for cookies.

The paper I grew up with, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this evening.

The filing had been expected for some time.  Still, it serves as a sobering reminder of just what a sorry state the newspaper industry is in at the moment.  The Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy a month ago, and The New York Times is in such a perilous financial state that speculation is rampant on its fate.  Years of suckling at the sweet teat of classified ads, crushing debt loads, and general shifts towards electronic media have all contributed to the problem.

Still, there is a ray of light in the gloom that is print publications.  Hyperlocal newspapers, the 20,000-circulation dailies and weeklies are prospering.  Their hardest news tends to be disagreements about street maintenance at city council meetings, but that’s not the point.  These papers provide news coverage that is available nowhere else.  People don’t look at them for national news.  If you want to see photos from the local prep football game, the local daily is the place to go — not the 300,000-circ regional publication. More importantly, they provide advertising focus that is unrivaled: all of the readers are in the right place, and the rates are reasonable.

Although shrinking, there are still millions of people who are willing to dole out cash money for the privilege of getting their national news from dead trees. I still enjoy the serendipitous discovery of information while reading print newspapers; I maintain a subscription to The Wall Street Journal.  The experience is similar to reading a site like reddit or Digg: I read not to see a particular article, but rather for the pure joy of reading.

Each medium has its place: the internet for breaking news, print for in-depth analysis, and television for… nothing; most TV news is partisan rubbish.  What about hybrids, like the New York Times iPhone app or the Kindle?  Those are nice, but the experience is more akin to the internet than the paper.

In the future, I see the hyperlocal print papers flourishing by continuing their coverage of news that will remain ignored elsewhere.  I also see the survival of two or three national print papers to satisfy the customers who enjoy the national print experience.  Specifically, I believe that The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The New York Times will weather the storm (perhaps after restructuring in bankruptcy).  All of the mid-level papers are doomed.

The mid-levels — the Star Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Denver Post, to name a few — occupy the mushy middle.  They satisfy the needs of nobody well.  They increasingly rely on AP feeds to fill space as they trim their newsroom staffs, and that won’t provide enough differentiation from the nationals and the internet.  Some mid-levels may attempt an all-electronic route, but they would emerge fundamentally different: the revenue available to online plays cannot support staff sizes even approaching those of print.

Having worked at a newspaper, their demise makes me sad, but emotion alone will not salvage a broken business model.   Best of luck to them and their employees.

Update Jan 15, 11:12 p.m.: I see that some people have started a movement to make February 2 “Buy a Newspaper Day.”  While their hearts are in the right place, such efforts won’t fix the fundamental supply/demand imbalance.