I took the shot above last weekend while at the park with my girlfriend on a glorious evening enjoying a few beers and a couple of burgers made on a little disposable BBQ. I thought that life couldn’t get much better so used my trusty Panasonix Lumix LX3 to capture the moment. I tweaked the shot later that evening in photoshop and when I saw the final version realised that it was probably one my favourite shots that I’ve taken to date.

It made me realise that I spend most of my photographic life trying to find that elusive perfect shot that I’ll finally be happy with. Couple that with the fact that I’ll only pull the trigger on a shot if I think it’s worthwhile (or worthy, if I can say that) and it means that quite often I forget to take these kind of snapshots of moments that involve me and are important to me; rather than shots that I think you (the viewer) will like.

Given the amount of baby and cat pictures on the internet, I’m sure the majority of people don’t need (or want) my words of advice, but I wanted to write this short article to remind people (and myself more than anyone) to take that plain old snapshot which, in years to come, might end up being one of the most precious shots in your archives.

Here’s another couple that always bring a smile to my face when I see them:

This one is of my girlfriend in New York seconds after making her self proclaimed “hilarious” joke. I’ve never seen anyone being so pleased with themselves at having made a crap joke, that I had to capture the moment.

And here’s my little granny sitting at the breakfast table one morning. She saw I had my camera in my hand and thought she would pull some funny faces for me. She looks quite serious but you won’t find a happier 80+ year old than this!