I've just discovered an interesting blog:
Unphotographable is a catalog of exceptional mistakes. Photos never taken that weren't meant to be forgotten. Opportunities missed. Simple failures. Occasions when I wished I'd taken the picture, or not forgotten the camera, or had been brave enough to click the shutter.Perhaps ten years ago, I was in the Panther Creek drainage of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, hiking with Dwight McCarter along the edge of a forest fire. We were searching for a tree that the Park Service wanted to protect from the wildfire because it bore a carving that dated to before the establishment of the park. As I made my way along, I looked down and noticed a perfect maple leaf, charred entirely black, that had floated out of the fire to land on an otherwise vibrant green patch of forest floor. The contrast was amazing, the image so stunning it remains in my mind to this day.
In my hands I held a government-issued 35 mm camera which contained government-issued film and decided the shot wasn't necessary for my work. That it would be a waste, albeit a small one, of the tax payers' money.
I've longed for that photograph for years, though. Had I had a digital camera at the time, where shots cost virtually nothing, I'd have taken the image.
What about you? What photograph didn't you take, and why?