Here's a story of a photo.

Snow was flurrying around, it was cold, and I tried to read a book while riding the lifts but it's tricky turning pages of a book with mitts and the fingerbones get chatterin' when exposed for too long so the novel landed back in my pocket.

I took about seven pictures today. Some of the great views of the town from the gondola. Others of a mountain valley with skiiers flying by on the run. All of the pictures had more of a backdrop and setting than this one.

Two riders overlooking a drop down onto a steeper blue run, the mountain otherwise empty in eye-shot. Empty lifts passing on the right. I noticed in but a second that it might be kind of neat to have a chair passing in focus while the silhouettes of the riders in the background tell a story. Sort of a "they were just in that chair" thing, or the whole circle of life cliché, or the familiar rhythms of the mountain that all snow sports people keep in their muscle memory.

Well, the chance to get that photo was slim. My hands had to fly out of the mittens, clamor with cold zippers, get the camera out and to the right setting, aim and time with the passing lifts, catch the right focus distance... all in about 15-20 seconds or less - I actually missed the angle I wanted by what felt like a significant amount of time. This was the one and only photo of the moment.

Though it turns out that the other carefully chosen, scenic, more traditional shots of the day, well, they're all terrible. This is the only one worth looking at.