I recently finished reading the book Photographs Not Taken, the book is full of short stories about why photographers didn’t capture the moment and in some cases how it hunts them. It made me think about some of the photographs that I haven’t taken and the reasons why.

June 2013 I was in Rome for a little over a week and wanted to capture as much of it as possible. Rome a city full of beautiful people, wonderful architecture, and amazing textures. It’s a photographer’s paradise.

On our last night there we decided to head up to Gianicolo hill to photograph the sun going down over the Roman Forum. It was already 17:00 when we started our hike up from our place in the Trastevere neighborhood.

Since it was getting late in the day and we didn’t exactly know where we where going we rushed out the door with one thing on our mind. Get to the top before sunset was over. This is where my story about the Photograph Not Taken begins.

On one of the back streets I noticed a gentleman enter the doorway of his vintage guitar shop and light a cigarette. I stopped and composed the scene in my mind. It was perfect. Vintage guitars in the background, him standing there with his wild hair a leather jacket and mirrored aviator sunglasses on, and to finish of the shot the cigarette smoke swirling around.

I stood there looking at this gift presented to me thinking should I grab my camera, would he mind me taking his photo?

Ultimately with the sunset over the city of Rome in the forefront of my mind I hastily headed back up the hill. And just like that the moment was gone!

As I walked past the guitar shop later that evening all I could think of was I should have taken a moment to capture it…

Photographs Not Taken
Publisher: Daylight Books; 2nd edition (March 31, 2012)
ISBN-10: 0983231613 / ISBN-13: 978-0983231615