The repertoire of "images that are known to work" is the key to a high success rate when shooting quickly, but bringing it into play calls on a number of techniques that range from the practical to the observational. I even hesitate to call them techniques, because the word suggests a well-defined procedure, yet some of them are elusive. Here we are looking at tactics for rapid-reaction, unpredictable situations how to prepare and how to exploit chance. Back again to Cartier-Bresson: "Photography is not like painting," he said in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera." He added that once missed, the opportunity was gone forever, a salutary reminder.

I can think of four different areas of preparation: camera handling, observation, familiarity with compositional techniques, and state of mind. Probably the most straightforward part of the preparation is in dexterity at handling the camera so that it becomes, as more than one photographer has described it, an extension of the body, like any familiar tool. In the model for hunting for images on page 157, this means practice at the "sideways" input so that the controls can be applied faster and faster. The second type of preparation is in developing more acute observation of people and events "situational awareness" (originally an aviation term) in other words by constant attention...