The Last Shot

David Brenner used to do a routine on the things we say when we’ve misplaced something.  My favorite  was, I bet it’s going to be in the last place I look.  “Of course it’s going to be in the last place you look,” Brenner would shout, “who finds something and then keeps looking for it!”

Hmm.  Going through the shots I took this weekend, I noticed that in every sequence, the last shot was the best.  Always.  And it didn’t matter how many there were in a sequence – 17 of a massive group of nudibranchs feeding and mating, 10 of a lobster hiding under an anemone, 3 of a crab climbing a sponge-encrusted hydroid, 21 of a humongous nudibranch moving Godzilla-like from one hydroid to another – invariably, the last shot was the sharpest, or the best lit, or the best composed. 

And I have no idea why.

In the bad old days of film, when shots were so limited, so precious, I had a strict ten-shot rule: I wouldn’t take a single shot of something unless it was worth taking ten shots of.  I still use that ten-shot rule, but for the opposite reason: with almost unlimited shots now available, anything worth shooting is worth shooting the crap out of.  But the laws of quantitative analysis are clear: any shot in that sequence should have the potential to be the best.

So why does that last shot so often outshine the others?  I wish I knew – then I could just jump right to it.  Then again, maybe Brenner’s logic on finding misplaced objects applies to underwater photography, as well.  I mean, who gets their best shot and then keeps shooting?

The last shot in the sequence I took of Nudzilla