Like Galen Rowell said: "Photography is an action sport!"

Same thing happened to me yesterday.  I looked out the window to discover the orangy-reddish cloud blotches in the sky during sunset.  I told myself I'd shoot it in 1 or 2 minutes.  Next thing I know, the sky was pitch dark.

T-1000

Took this through the window while driving home yesterday. By the time I turned the corner and stopped (1 minute maybe) it was gone. It was great fun getting the camera out of the bag while in traffic. Too bad because the sky had the strangest blue tint under those red clouds. I thought I had the camera in program but it was in auto and the blue doesn't show up as I had hoped.

???

Well sometimes you get lucky and get it.  Way to many times I agree you see it and by the time you are ready it is gone.

Here is Christmas Day in Big Bend Texas 1979.  Got lucky for sure.  enjoy bs

...is just how fleeting that moment of perfect light and texture is.    It's measured in seconds have the time and only lasts minutes the rest.  At least for me.

I was driving home Tuesday night and the sky was a fiery red with bold full clouds illuminated like blood or a picture you see in National Geo of fires filling the sky in Montana or Idaho....
Crossed a bridge and looked for a place to pull off and when I did and looked up the sky was no longer on fire...it had changed in a matter of 2-3 minutes.

The moment I always miss is when there is a shower around sunset and a hole opens up around the sun just as it sets but the rest  of the  landscape is still overcast.  The whole wet earth glows with the most golden concentrated light ... caught in a thousand jewels of dripping water.  Usually lasts  no more than five minutes and I never have a camera when it does.

reminds me of this shot

> ...is just how fleeting that moment of perfect light and texture is.

Absolutely! And how constantly shifting the scene. Which is why I'm an advocate of tripod-less shooting for most landscape photography. And for spending hours on a site taking scores of images rather than coming in for an hour or two and tediously taking 3 shots as I see MF/LF shooters do at local scenic spots. Odds are low that the two hours they pick are ideal or that the spot they choose to setup will still be the best spot 20 minutes later when they're done with all their rigamarole of setting up.

- DL

"Odds are low ... ."  Yes in deed.  I enjoy returning many times to the same spot to increase the odds.  Sometimes I don't get the best image, but I enjoy just seeing a good image go by in that fleeting instant.  I don't grieve or worry about the ones that get away and a lot do.  Like fish, they may be bigger next time.

I once gave up photography all together when I realized I was running around like what I thought was a mad man, viewing the world through a Nikon.  Only when I got home and looked at the images did I see where I had been.  That got me into just looking around, watching and enjoying.  Then a different kind (mode) of photography came to me.