Most people would agree that the moment is the most important part of any photo. If it's a good moment, people will love your photo even if it's filled with mistakes, such as being blurry or too dark.
How do you capture a good moment?
You need to develop the ability to anticipate, to see what is about to happen before it does. Some things are easy to anticipate because they are predictable. The sun rises and sets every day. Getting a nice sunset moment isn't too difficult because we can pinpoint the moment that the sun goes down every day. But how about anticipating unpredictable moments? Take toddlers for example. Who knows what they're going to do at any moment!
But even something as seemingly random and chaotic as the behaviour of toddlers is predictable. It just takes a bit longer to notice the pattern.
Patterns are the key to seeing moments before they happen.
Pay attention to the things you love to photograph and take note. Your ability to anticipate moments will increase over time. Just do it regularly.
What kind of moment is it?
Now think about the moments that you love to photograph ask what sort of moment they are. You begin with either a moment that you've posed or one that is happening spontaneously.
There are posed moments such as portraits, food photography or still life.
There are natural moments that happen spontaneously like candid moments, photojournalism or travel photography.
Action, emotion, mystery
Whether it’s a natural or posed moment there are further questions to ask. That moment may be packed with action (sports), or emotion (events), or mystery (portraits).
Your photo could be a posed portrait full of emotion.
Perhaps it's a candid sports photo packed with action. Or a bird taking flight.
Maybe it's an interesting silhouette photos with a sense of mystery.
Even nature has moments
I used to think that nature photos (flowers, landscapes, water) didn't really have moments. But then I realized another level of moment.
Think about a simple landscape. That landscape will look quite different depending on the time of day that you photograph it. The light changes rapidly from sunrise to high noon.
A landscape changes from season to season.
The weather (sun, rain, snow, wind) will change it as well.
Time of day, season and weather will count for all your other photos as well.
Suppose you're photographing a natural action moment. Maybe it's somebody playing sports. There are other parts of the moment to consider. Is it in the harsh afternoon light, or the soft light of evening (time of day)? Is it spring or fall (season)?
Stage of life
Finally, when you're photographing people, consider the stage of life they're in. The significance of the moment changes depending on the stage of life the person is in.
Maybe you've got an action shot of a toddler playing with a soccer ball. Then an action shot of them as a teen playing for their high school team. Then a shot of them playing pro soccer. Three action photos of the same person playing soccer, but the stage of life changes the moment.
Let's look at lots of sample photos and explore the types of moments in them.
Types of moments to look for:
Natural
Posed
Action
Emotion
Mystery
Time of day
Season
Weather
Stage of life
When we practice labeling the moments like this, we know what sort of moments to look for and what to anticipate. After a while it becomes intuitive.