Some of my favourite photographs are not necessarily the ones that were easiest to create.

In fact, many of the images I value most are the ones that almost never happened.

Photography can look effortless when you see the final frame. A perfectly positioned subject, dramatic light, clear skies and everything seemingly falling into place. What you don't see is the planning, the failed attempts, the long drives, the early mornings, the bad weather, the waiting and, sometimes, a fair amount of luck.

Over the years, I've learned that getting difficult photographs is rarely about simply being in the right place. It's about understanding what needs to happen, putting yourself in a position for that moment to occur, and being willing to keep trying when it doesn't.

These five photographs are some of my favourite examples.

1. Aurora Australis from the Southernmost Tip of Africa

Seeing the Aurora Australis from the southernmost tip of Africa is already an incredibly rare experience. Seeing it clearly enough to be visible to the naked eye is something else entirely.

In late 2024, a particularly powerful solar flare created the possibility of seeing the aurora much further north than usual. As soon as the announcement came through, I knew I had to try.

I drove for around 2.5 hours to get into position.

But getting there was only the first part.

For a photograph like this, several things have to happen simultaneously. The aurora needs to be strong enough. The skies need to be clear. There needs to be as little moonlight as possible. The timing of the solar activity has to coincide with darkness.

Miss just one of those ingredients and the photograph doesn't happen.

What made this event even more special was the rarity of an aurora of this magnitude being visible to the naked eye from this part of Africa. The previous comparable event was roughly 27 years earlier.

So this wasn't something I could simply plan to photograph again the following week.

I had one opportunity.

Fortunately, the skies cleared and everything came together.

Standing there and seeing the aurora with my own eyes was incredible. The photograph became almost secondary.

But that's what makes these images so special. Sometimes photography gives you a reason to witness something you might otherwise never have seen.

2. A Lunar Eclipse Over the Canola Fields

This was one of those photographs that required a plan B, C and eventually something I hadn't planned at all.

For the lunar eclipse, I had spent a huge amount of time working out potential compositions. The original plan was to photograph the eclipse rising over an old barn surrounded by the canola fields.

It looked perfect on paper.

There was just one problem.

Cloud.

The location I had chosen was completely overcast for the entire night.

At that point, you have two options as a photographer. Accept that the photograph isn't going to happen, or start looking for another possibility.

I chose the second.

I got in the car and drove for nearly three hours to another location where I had identified an old windmill surrounded by canola fields.

The timing was incredibly tight.

I arrived just in time to get set up and, fortunately, the skies at the new location were clear.

Suddenly, everything I'd been hoping for was there.

The eclipsed Moon. The canola fields. The old windmill.

It wasn't the photograph I had originally planned.

It was better in one important way.

It actually existed.

That's an important lesson I've learned from photography. You can spend weeks planning a photograph, but nature doesn't care about your plan.

Weather changes. Clouds arrive. Light disappears. Animals move. Sometimes your perfect composition simply isn't available.

The ability to adapt is just as important as the ability to plan.

3. Sandhof Lilies Beneath the Milky Way

This photograph was the result of an incredibly unusual coincidence.

The Sandhof lilies normally bloom around January and February. Unfortunately, that's before the Milky Way is positioned where I wanted it for this particular composition.

Normally, those two things simply don't overlap.

But last year, something unusual happened.

The lilies bloomed much later than normal, appearing in mid-March.

Suddenly, there was a tiny window where the flowers and the Milky Way could exist in the same photograph.

But even then, it wasn't guaranteed.

The lilies only bloom for a few days.

That meant I had an incredibly small window to get everything right.

I needed the flowers to be blooming.

I needed the Milky Way in the right position.

I needed clear skies.

And, critically, I needed very little wind.

Wind is a major problem when photographing flowers at night. Even a gentle breeze can move the flowers during a long exposure, turning the foreground into a blur.

Everything had to align.

And somehow, it did.

Standing there under the Milky Way, surrounded by lilies that normally wouldn't be flowering at that time of year, I knew how unusual the moment was.

That's one of the reasons I love nature photography.

You can't manufacture these conditions.

You can only recognise when nature gives you a tiny opportunity and be ready to take it.

4. Giraffes, a Rainbow and the Storm

This photograph happened because something went wrong.

We were out on safari when our vehicle got a puncture.

Not exactly the situation you're hoping for when you're trying to photograph wildlife.

We had to wait for another tyre to be brought out to us, leaving us sitting there while the weather changed around us.

Then the storm broke.

What had initially been an inconvenience suddenly became an opportunity.

The light changed dramatically. A rainbow appeared behind us, and the storm created incredibly intense light across the landscape.

Then a group of giraffes moved into the scene.

For a few moments, everything lined up.

The rainbow.

The light.

The storm.

The giraffes.

The composition.

And then it was gone.

There is a tendency to think that good wildlife photography is about finding an animal and taking its photograph.

It isn't.

It's often about being there long enough for something extraordinary to happen.

If we'd never had that puncture, we would have driven straight through that area.

We wouldn't have stopped.

We wouldn't have seen the rainbow.

And I wouldn't have taken this photograph.

Sometimes the thing that ruins your plans is exactly what creates the photograph.

5. Eight Years Waiting for the Milky Way Over Lions Head

This is probably the photograph that best represents what I mean when I talk about patience in photography.

I've wanted to create this image for around eight years.

The Milky Way only lines up with Lions Head in the exact position I wanted for roughly one week each year.

That already makes the window incredibly small.

But there's another problem.

Cape Town is a city.

Light pollution can completely overwhelm the Milky Way, particularly when you're photographing towards the city.

The solution was to wait for something equally difficult to predict: fog.

A fog bank over Cape Town can act almost like a natural light pollution filter, blocking much of the glow from the city while leaving the night sky visible above it.

When the conditions finally looked promising, I went out.

And I went out again.

And again.

For four consecutive nights, I hiked at around 3am hoping everything would finally come together.

Four nights.

No photograph.

Then, on the final night, it happened.

The Milky Way was exactly where I had been waiting for it to be.

The fog was there.

The conditions worked.

And after eight years of thinking about the photograph, I finally had the frame.

It's a single photograph.

No composite.

No second chance.

Just one moment when the alignment, weather, timing and preparation finally came together.

The Photograph Is Only the Final Moment

Looking at these five photographs individually, they might appear very different.

An aurora.

A lunar eclipse.

Wildflowers beneath the Milky Way.

Giraffes beneath a rainbow.

The Milky Way above Lions Head.

But they all have something in common.

None of them were guaranteed.

That's what I find so addictive about nature photography.

You can plan everything.

You can study weather forecasts, astronomical charts, moon positions and locations. You can scout compositions, drive for hours, hike in the middle of the night and wait for days.

And you can still come home with nothing.

But occasionally, everything comes together.

And when it does, the photograph means more because you know what it took to create it.

For me, that's what photography is really about.

It's not just about taking a photograph.

It's about the pursuit of the photograph.

The planning.

The patience.

The failures.

The early mornings.

The long drives.

The uncertainty.

And being willing to go back and try again.

Because sometimes the best photographs are the ones that almost never happened.