It’s interesting how we go about our decision-making. We like to think we are so  “in control” of things, but so often that just isn’t the case and we must just react to circumstances.

For example – yesterday I drove to Bude in Cornwall and had this vague hope that I might be able to take some half-decent photos whilst I was down in this neck of the woods. So, I brought a whole heap of camera gear with me just in case.

Last night I needed to decide what time I should get up in the morning and whether a dawn shoot was in the offing. Alas, ’twas not to be… Here’s why…

1. My favourite kind of thing to photograph is the coast at dawn or dusk. Especially en the tide is low.
2. Dawn today was at 6.34 am
3. Low tide was at 2.07 am
4. It was grey
5. It was raining

Result – stay in bed! I have decided on previous occasions to get up at some ridiculous time anyway in the vain hope that all these other factors wouldn’t matter, and I’d come home with some amazing Ansel Adams piece of Getty-prize-winning picture of awesomeness!

But the truth is that you just have to pick your moment to strike… The moment when it is worth investing in a 4 am start when all sensible people are still comfortably tucked up under the duvet. Fact is, you can’t change the tide, or the weather , or the time the sun rises, or the fact that the best shots require the right combination of these things.

If you spend your life living in regret that the tide is wrong, the clouds are grey, that dawn is early… It’s just going to be a long struggle. I could have decided to get out of bed at 4.00 am and found the perfect location for some coastal photographic drama. But it wouldn’t have changed the grey, dank, skies or the fact that the tide was in.

So, I decided not to get up at 4.00 am – I don’t have my coastal dream dawn shot, but at least I had a bit more time in bed! There will be others dawns, or sunsets and I have learned to pick my moment.