Tonight I was scheduled to photograph a magazine cover for a client. I had to coordinate the schedule of three people, block off part of a rural city street, schedule to have a fire truck and police vehicle as props. Driving to the location I see the storms gathering in the distance. I was getting nervous. I scouted the location the night before and knew there was a chance for storms this night, but it was difficult getting the scheduling done for all these subjects and my client’s deadline was fast approaching, so I hoped we would get lucky with the weather. And dramatic weather often makes for excellent pictures.
But as I set up my metal light stands on a city sidewalk under an awning, I could see the rain and lighting approaching. I was all set up and ready when my subjects arrived, but by now it was starting a light sprinkle and lightning was flashing all around. I was not too wild about standing on a tall metal ladder, moving metal light stands around, and shooting with bolts of lighting flashing across the sky less than a mile away. I knew it would only take 5 minutes for the shoot, but it would take less than a second for a lighting bolt to flash out of the sky and ruin everyone’s day.
I talked to my subjects and they were all understanding. We probably would have been able to pull off the shoot without incident, but I wasn’t too happy with the odds so we postponed for a few days until we could all get together for the shoot again. Now we are going to be really pushing up against our deadline but I think we can still make this work.
Discretion is the better part of valor. Sometimes it takes more courage to do the right thing. You did the right thing, but you don’t need me telling you that.