There’s a Kenny Rogers song that has nothing to do with photography — and everything to do with it.
You’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, know when to run.
I’ve been thinking about those four decisions on location for years. Because they map almost perfectly onto what a thoughtful photographer does when they encounter a scene worth photographing.
Know when to hold ’em.
You’ve found it. You know what the image is. The conditions are right and the scene is in front of you.
Now you wait.
This is the part nobody talks about — the active watching that happens after you’ve committed to a shot. One eye on the camera, one eye on everything moving around you. A car about to clear the frame. A person walking into just the right position. A canoe on the water drifting toward the lower third of the frame where it belongs.
You’re not just taking a picture.
You’re conducting. Watching for the moment when all the elements align
—and being ready when they do.
Know when to fold ’em.
This one has nothing to do with the light or the composition or the time of day.
Sometimes a moment is simply meant to be lived — not photographed.
We experience the world with every sense we have. We feel the wind. We hear the ocean. We smell the forest after rain. We stand in a crowd singing every word of a song we’ve loved for twenty years while the artist plays it live in front of us.
And some people spend that moment holding up a phone.
I understand the impulse. But here’s the truth — that photograph isn’t going to capture what you feel. It will document that you were there. It will trigger the memory later. But it will need that memory to give it meaning.
A photograph that stands alone needs no such support. It doesn’t remind you of a feeling — it creates one. Even in someone who wasn’t there.
A document triggers a memory. A photograph is the memory.
Knowing the difference — knowing when to put the camera down and simply be present — is one of the most important skills a photographer can develop. Not every beautiful moment is a photograph. Some are just beautiful moments. Let them be that.
Know when to walk away.
The subject is worth photographing. But today is not the day.
The light is wrong. The street is crowded. The conditions that would make this image work simply aren’t here right now.
Walking away from something beautiful takes discipline. It also takes trust — trust that you can return, and that the scene will reward the planning.
Note the location. Think about the light direction. Consider what time of day this scene would reveal itself most fully. Come back in the early morning when the streets are quiet. Come back when the crowds have moved on. Come back with a plan.
The subject will still be there. And the photograph will be worth the wait.
Know when to run.
Not literally — but sometimes a scene changes in an instant.
A cloud breaks and the light shifts from flat to extraordinary. Golden hour arrives and the walls of a building you’ve walked past a hundred times suddenly glow. The blue light of dusk settles over the water just after the sun drops below the horizon — that brief, luminous window that lasts maybe ten minutes before the world goes dark.
These moments don’t announce themselves with much warning. They appear, they offer themselves, and then they’re gone.
The photographer who has been paying attention — who already knows what they’re looking for and why — is ready when they arrive. The one still deciding misses them entirely.
This is why planning matters. Why knowing your location, your light direction, and your timing changes everything. The best photographs of any place are rarely made on the first visit. They’re made by someone who came back — who knew what they were waiting for — and was ready when it happened.
Saint Augustine taught me every one of these lessons.
The Complete Saint Augustine Photography Experience was designed around exactly this kind of seeing — every stop chosen with purpose, every route timed for the light that favors it. The Intentional Image Method™ guides you through not just where to go, but how to watch, when to wait, and when to simply put the camera down and be present.
Download the free preview and walk three stops through Saint Augustine’s oldest streets. Or step straight into the complete experience.
