Have you ever experienced that moment when you look through the viewfinder to see a beautiful impressionistic image of colours and shapes – only for it all to snap into focus and lose the magic?

When I found it happening to me once too often, I started thinking about what had actually happened. Usually the focus was off – sometimes wildly – and I was seeing some magnificent bokeh balls before the focus snapped to the correct position to show me an accurate view of the scene. Often, too, the exposure was off, showing me an underexposed image that made the colours more vivid, more vibrant, before the camera’s auto-exposure kicked in, giving me an accurate exposure.

It was these realisations that made me decide to take more control. If I defocussed the image, the bokeh balls would return. If I exposed for a low-key image, the colours would pop. The resulting image wasn’t in any sense an accurate view of the scene in front of me. But it did capture the magic that i had seen in the viewfinder for that split second before the camera imposed its world-view.