I’ve shot two photos that I was about to throw away recently. They taught me an important lesson. One was a shot of leaves on the tree in the backyard. The other a landscape/cloud shot.

I zoomed in to see how sharp the focus was on the leaf shot and saw a hornet resting on a leaf in the tree. Maybe waiting for the sun to thaw it out.

I had already zoomed in at 200mm to get the full shot below this cropped one. I thought it was odd to zoom in while editing at that point and see it when I hadn’t noticed it in the full shot.

It’s just to the left of center.

The next image was on the same day looking from my deck through the backyards of my neighbors. I was looking for a cloud shot and almost threw it away when I looked at the sky and wondered what was that flying.

It appears to be two large birds, and my guess is they are fighting over a meal. In editing when I really zoomed in on the wide-angle image, there was something long below them, my guess a snake. I doubt they would argue over a branch. If it was a kite I would have seen it suspended a while. Plus, our street and neighborhood are all big trees so you fly it you lose it.

These two images taught me today to look more closely at what I shot and to pay more attention. I could have zoomed in more on each of these if I was looking closer, taking my time, and gotten something worth keeping.

Photos by Mike Hartley