I want to briefly talk about the concept of a "one-shot wonder." I don't know if anyone else actually thinks about this concept, but I think about it and I made one while on my trip to Banff recently so I figured I'd write a little something about it. 

A one-shot wonder is an image made by only taking one exposure of a subject. They usually happen while I'm in the middle of shooting something that I think is REALLY important. I'm shooting different compositions, maybe even different shutter speeds, and. . . I take a quick breather from shooting that important thing, glance around, something immediately catches my eye, and without hesitation, I compose my shot, check my settings and adjust them if I need to, and then press the shutter once, taking one picture. I check my LCD screen to see the picture I just took, see the composition is great, check my histogram real quick and see the exposure looks good, and I guess I just know that I got what I wanted so I move on. And just like that, I've made a one-shot wonder. No extra exposures, no bracketing, no different compositions. . . Just one shot, and I'm happy. I usually know that image is a good one, but it's not till I make it back to my computer, load images, and start to look through them that the one-shot wonder really stands out and I realize how much I LOVE it. I'm drawn to it in a different way than I'm drawn to the images I worked for hours to get. Something about them is so special. To me at least. .

So next time you're out on a shoot and you're making several exposures of a scene you think is really important, take a breath, a step back, a look around and then take a shot. You never know what gems you'll get. 

Here is that shot from Banff. 

Canon 5DmkII, EF 100-300mm f5.6/L at 100mm

1/30 sec at f25, ISO 100

Mount Inglismaldie, Summer, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada