There are lot of moving parts to life and if you are going to capture it you have to be present and ready to shoot. I can not say how many times something happened like this photo above and my camera was in my bag powered off or lens cap on and well just useless. Digital cameras also can suffer the same fate tucked away in bag power off and by the time you turn it on and boot up sequence happens, well the moment is gone.
Henri Cartier-Bresson called it the decisive moment but all that means is keeping your eyes open for something that is about to happen or is happening and being able to act on it. Henry used a manual focus Leica and his muscle memory and technique allowed him to capture anything he was looking at with speed and accuracy.
For the rest of us a point and shoot or automatic camera really helps being present and ready for that shot. This one was taken with an Olympus Stylus Epic which was open and ready to go. The flash was on as it always is hence the red eye that I was too lazy to fix….